The Spoon River Metblog
A group blog adaptation of
“Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters
Written by Jay Bushman
Produced by The Loose-Fish Project:
Adapting classic texts to the web
Originally published in 2008
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com

The Source: Spoon River Anthology
When they first appeared serially in the magazine Reedy’s Mirror in 1915, the 244 poems
that make up Spoon River Anthology were a scandal and a sensation. A poet named
Webster Ford, visiting the cemetery in his fictional hometown of Spoon
River, Illinois, hears the testimony of the local dead. Each individual poem is one
person’s epitaph. Some of them have attained wisdom in their passing. Some cling to
the grudges of their living days. Some cry for justice. Some ask for forgiveness. Many
relate their part in the culture war between liberals and conservatives that split their
town in two. Most, but not all, are unquiet. Each individual testimony reveals more
detail about the larger stories occurring in the town, with people augmenting or
contradicting their neighbors.
Masters used plain and blunt language to describe their inner, secret lives, touching on
topics such as abortion, murder, infidelity and atheism, and ripping the veneer off the
image of idyllic small town life. When the poems were assembled, augmented and
reordered in book form in 1916, it became the second best-selling volume of American
poetry of all-time.
Today it is a standard text in many high school English classes and acting schools, and
stage adaptations are regularly performed.

244 Voices From The Grave
“The Spoon River Metblog” updates this complex narrative while returning to the
original serial form of distribution. In this version, the town is a different Spoon River, a
microcosm of a shrinking America. Here too, a culture war raged, secrets were
kept, people loved and betrayed and murdered. We hear 244 of the departed bear
witness to the meaning, or lack of meaning, of their lives. Our guide here is not a poet;
instead, a writer named George Dillon Davidson records the epitaphs of the dead in a
kind of syllabic prose.
The story is told in the form of a Metblog. Metrobloggingis a worldwide network of city-
specific blogs, where groups of authors write stories about life in their city from a
personal, hyper-local perspective. Bode Media, the publishers of Metroblogging, built a
fictional Metblog site for Spoon River at http://spoonriver.metblogs.com. The epitaphs
as relayed by Davidson are published as individual blog posts.
And there is a hidden code which leads the reader to uncover even more of the town’s
secrets…
Meet the people of Spoon River

1. I, Metadata
The might remain to tell your stories
holographic memory stores or
en- damn your enemies. To confess
un-
ciphered throughout our brains; our We, love of your family or warn
our of
Us, our I; the thing we whisper
night- those fatal mistakes. To pronounce
time pleas and stories to. The hub wise
edicts and foolish rules. And some
of nights,
feeling and of knowing and of there’d be me there, listening for
you.
self.
You could have (sort of) eternal Spoon River’s legacy is here,
life, in
let it be imaged in software xerox-constructed epitaphs
and
built into your grave site. You’d be by George Dillon Davidson
long
expired, but your encoded
Soul
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/i-metadata

2. Lukasz Harding
I’m buried right next to
Jim Waring, the stockbroker. later they gave me a
I remember he made lethal injection. Now I
a mint in the dot com boom, lie next to Jim. Seems our
went bankrupt, and somehow two roads led to the same place.
ended up even richer
than before, while I lost
everything I had and more.
Seeing how the wealthy
just took what they felt they could
get away with, I went
and robbed a mini-mart store
and accidentally
shot the clerk at the counter.
He was an immigrant,
a father of four and I
killed him. I plead guilty
and got death row, where five years
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/lukasz-harding

3. Marion Rankin-Dyer
My husband was a cruel
man. He never laid a
finger on me,
but there was no love in
his eyes no matter what
he said. I knew.
Years went by quietly.
He wore me down, and my
spirit smothered
until the face in my
mirror looked at me with
the same contempt.
I withered and died. But
I am content, because
now it haunts him,
that awful face. He knows
what he did to me. That
is my revenge.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/marion-rankin-dyer

4. Nathan Rankin-Dyer
She’s always there, watching
me. Before, beautiful
and young, later
drained, accusatory.
Now, from behind my own
eyes. What did I
do to deserve this end?
Who am I fooling? I
know what I did.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/nathan-rankin-dyer

5. Ira Hernandez
I spent years
in the garage, trying to make my
vision real.
Dreaming of the systems, the software,
the networks,
code I could recite like poetry.
Then one day,
it all came together as I planned
and I saw
myself standing in the company
of all the
famous garage geniuses, and in
excitement
I tripped over a power cord and
dashed my brains
all over the floor of the garage.
I thought work
was supposed to be its own reward.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/ira-hernandez

6. Evan Loy
They called me good.
No one knew.
They called me nice.
No one knew.
They called me a
gentleman,
always with a
kind word or
gesture. So they
never knew,
the fools. And they
never will.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/evan-loy

7. Fat Tina
Ugly me,
I never had
anyone
who saw what I
could feel on
the inside. They
just pointed
and gave me a
name that I
would never lose.
They say that
all people are
beautiful
in some way but
nobody
ever found mine.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/fat-tina

8. Suze Mueller
I got pregnant But he knows, and I know that
my second year of college he killed me as
and Michael said sure as if he’d cut my throat.
we should have the baby. And
when I told him
about the sad history
of the women
in my family, that I
was terrified,
he would not listen to me.
I relented,
carried to term and died while
giving birth to
a baby girl. And now he
raises her and
they all say how he’s selfless,
honorable,
and that the whole story is
a tragedy
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/suze-mueller

9. Tammy Wilkes
I lost my sister
to drugs, and took in her
two daughters to raise.
Mya and Janice grew
to hate me, but I
don’t blame them and neither
should you. I was too
hard on them, thinking that
discipline would save
them from their mother’s fate.
But all I did was
drive them back to the street.
I was supposed to
keep them safe but I failed.
May God forgive me.
I swear I tried my best.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/tammy-wilkes

10. Mike Ely
I was shot dead that the deal
for the five was illegal
bucks of crack I’d somehow. It
just bought. They was a giant
buried me, an scandal and
indigent, they were forced to
in Potter’s Field. pay to move
That was fine. all the corpses
It was just what to new graves
I had earned.
Which is how I
But then they sold ended up
the graveyard here, in the same
to a bigshot ground where they
real estate put that banker
developer and his wife,
to build a you know, the ones
big shopping mall. that always
It came out were on TV.
in the papers
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/mike-ely

11. Judge AbnerGoldhamer
It’s just not fair, is
it? A respected
Judge, pillar of the community,
friend to all the right
people, a man who
spent his lifetime upholding the law,
seeing wrong punished,
virtue rewarded.
So why am I buried here with no
marker of all my
great accomplishments
while that drug addict Michael Ely
gets a headstone of
Italian marble?
There is no justice in Spoon River.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/judge-abner-goldhamer

12. Eleanor Stargall
Do you remember when the kids off to die, but you were
Republicans paid Mike Ely too busy waving flags to hear.
to gather up street people My gift to you Spoon River.
and go around town disrupting
Democratic polling sites Have your fucking war. Choke on
as a part of their dirty tricks it.
campaign to buy another
term for our Mayor Garrity?
What you won’t remember is
when I packed it in after years
fighting them on behalf of
a “public interest” most of the
public had no interest in
protecting. So I took the bribe
they offered me and shut up
while they elected that moron
Robin Parker to Congress.
I could have warned you he’d send
our
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/eleanor-stargall

13. Kyle Kerns
Give this message dear Mayor Judy
to our esteemed town Garrity, the
leaders who have avatar of our
survived me. Titans morality.
of Spoon River: The righteous ones whom
Christian Deegan, and I spent my life
his gross fortune, opposing in and
corrupting all that out of court and
it touched. The right who have all outlived
Reverend Sheaffer me. Tell them not
preaching decades to worry. I got
worth of bile with here first, and I’m
impunity. building a brand new
Don Howard, with his Circle of Hell
television just for them. Tell them
station pumping lies I’m waiting and
and circuses I will see them soon.
around the clock. And
don’t forget our
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/kyle-kerns

14. Benjamin Ridley
I was a happy kid who grew
to be a happy man,
a lawyer, a community
voice, I was friends with men
and women of all persuasions.
And then I met her. We
were married, and things changed. My friends
said she made me ashamed,
timid, and my standing became
diminished. We argued
for years, decades. She always won.
By the time I left, I
had nowhere to go, nobody
who would give me refuge.
So I lived out my days sleeping
on the short couch in my
tiny office. At least I could
Smoke there without hearing
Her tell me what I was doing
Wrong. At least I had that.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/benjamin-ridley

15. Tysha Ridley-Sampson
I fell in love with
him because of how his
smoky breath excited me.
But when I had to
live with it every day,
a constant reminder of
how his values were
opposed to mine, I could
not forget it. I could not
let it go. That scent
never lost its power,
even after I drove him
away. How can love
and disgust be able
to live together in peace?
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/tysha-ridley-sampson

16. Micah Ridley
It took me years to years after I thought
see that all I became of it as a silly
was made possible juvenile crush. It
because of Miss Travis. was twenty years before
I was headed to I saw that I was
jail or worse. I was bent measuring all of my
on destroying my lovers against the
self, since destruction was template of you. I wish
all I had learned to I could have told you,
do. But Miss Travis was consequences be damned.
the only one in
all of godforsaken
Spoon River who gave
me reason to believe
I had a future.
Miss Travis, I never
told you how much I
was in love with you. For
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/micah-ridley

17. Genevieve Travis
I taught hundreds of students, thousands.
I only ever loved
one, dear Micah. I was so proud when
you escaped this town and
made a life for yourself in the world.
Even if I dreamed you
might come back someday and pined for it,
I’m glad you never did.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/genevieve-travis

18. Santiago Rufino, Pharm.D.
You have to know which drugs can be
taken with what other
drugs and which can’t, if you
want to own a pharmacy like
I did. Too bad there’s no
equivalent science
for mixing personalities.
Two people who are whole
on their own can form less
than the sum of their parts when mixed.
The Ridley-Sampsons there
are a good example.
Fine as individuals but
disastrous when blended
and resulting in a
toxic reaction like their son.
Even an expert can
be surprised sometimes, like
when my wife poisoned me to death
with chemicals that she
pilfered from my own store.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/santiago-rufino-pharmd

19. Daisey Kane
For a while there I was was paid for with
public menace money that came from “fees”
number one. The symbol and “taxes” and
of all that was “punitive judgments” on
wrong in Spoon River. Just what they called vice.
get rid of me How much money from my
and all would be perfect pocket paid for
and pure. Except the schools, the streets, the cops,
how much of Don Howard’s the services
kickbacks found their that made Spoon River run?
way to the town coffers? Do you wonder
Or the windfall why they never shut me
in stock Judge Fairlawn cashed down completely?
in after he If they had tried, the town
ruled in the favor of would have fallen
Deegan Partners? apart, along with their
And didn’t Reverend moral veneer.
Sheaffer live in
a mansion while most of
his flock was poor?
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/daisey-kane
And how much of the town

20. Benjamin Ridley Kane
I could always see all
the people behind the
people, the ghosts
trailing mutely behind
them, unable to give
warnings or laugh
at mistakes. Nobody
else could, but me. And I
would try speaking
to them, to decipher
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/benjamin-ridley-kane

21. Efa Underwood
I wrote my many injustices that came next.
little stories, and folks rolled their eyes. I had no
“Who’s ever family to support me, mother
gonna read these?” “Nothing happens.” “I long vanished,
don’t get it.” father too mired in old ways to
I was keener on divining things even speak
unspoken about it, and no money for an
between people who are all alone, abortion
than simple I begged Doctor Golden for help. He
turning of a story’s mechanics. delivered
me into the world, and I pleaded
The best place with him to
to observe the animals at play deliver me again. He agreed
was always to help me.
the bar at the Butcher’s Block. But there But something went wrong and I didn’t
are cruel beasts recover.
out there, who only hear what they say It took eight horrible weeks for me
to themselves. to fade and
That’s how I was pinned by the claws of die, while Doctor Golden was dragged through
Dutch Wallis, the mud and
who trapped me in the alley behind held responsible. Him, not Wallis.
Butcher’s, and
savaged me. He broke my bones, knocked out Seems it was
my teeth, raked true. No one understood my stories.
my skin, spilled my blood and left me a
pregnancy.
That he got away with it was just
the first of
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/efa-underwood

22. Llewelyn Underwood
There were Underwoods in this part
of the country when it was still a
colony. But instead of the
legacy of the founders of this
town, all you saw was a sad, poor
laborer carting a case home from
the Cut-Rate. And then my bitch wife
ran off. And then what you all did to
my poor Efa. I was the last
of the Underwoods. There are no more.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/llewelyn-underwood

23. Dutch Wallis
I was finally But because I was took it. It wasn’t
able to sober up. smoking where I shouldn’t nearly enough to pay
have been, workers comp for my expenses,
And I got a job denied my claim, and I and ran out quickly but
working as a third-shift was forced to sue the I solved that with a
janitor at the owner of the mall. Which return to my drinking.
big new Galleria. turned out to be a
One Monday morning, company owned by Rod
I was working in the Deegan. Which meant that
basement and stopped for the expired permits
a smoke break. When I lit and failed inspections
the match, there was a were covered up. The Judge
giant explosion. I in the case, like all
got second and third of them, a friend of the
degree burns all over. Deegans, allowed the
case to be delayed so
It turned out there were long that there was no
methane leaks all over way I could afford all
the building, and it the medical bills
was a miracle that and legal fees. So when
it hadn’t burned while they offered me a
full of people shopping. tiny settlement, I
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/dutch-wallis

24. Doctor Robert Golden
A lifetime of service, the stroke killed her. I
helping and healing followed her soon after,
families, meant nothing never convicted of
when I could not save poor any crime, never
Efa Underwood. found innocent either.
My name and picture on
every newspaper
cover, every
television screen. Charged
with manslaughter. And the
protestors! I went
to medical school with
a good friend of that
Doctor Sleppian,
so how could I take the
threats idly? I could see
vengeful killers in
every crowd. The strain
weighed on my wife, until
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/doctor-robert-golden

25. Mrs. Inez Golden
He spent the
remainder of
my life and his railing
against his
public disgrace.
He thinks the strain killed me.
I couldn’t
tell him the truth.
I thought he was guilty.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/doctor-robert-golden

26. Kevin Winterbaum
It was somewhere near
Basra, I think, where I died. Bleeding
into the sand, all
I could think about was how none of
my troublemaking
was worth it, and when they gave me the
choice of jail or the
Marines, I chose wrong. They gave me a
hero’s burial
and everyone was so proud of me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/kevin-winterbaum

27. Sheila Springer
Kevin Winterbaum
was arrested for having drugs,
for vandalism
and mischief, and Judge Bolton let
him join the army
to pay off his debt. But he died.
And nobody knew
that the only reason Kevin
was getting high and
smashing mailboxes that night, was
because he caught me
with Gio Moss, and I screamed at
him that I never
wanted to see his face again.
After he died I
saw it every night of my life.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/sheila-springer

28. Eugene Conkin
My family owned the I kept their organic
orchard. My father taught crusade at bay until
me how to run it, and I passed on. Then they made
do whatever it took their changes anyway.
to maximize yield, to
preserve freshness, and to But maybe they were right.
amplify color. I I’ve been buried here for
gave my children stakes in years; the worms won’t touch
the business, and we fought me.
over the additives
and fertilizers, the
chemical sprays and the
preservatives. They had
this strange idea about
how people wanted less
colorful and shorter-
lasting apples, and that
they would pay more for them.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/eugene-conkin

29. Jamieson Hazeltone
All I ever did was study
for the tests at school. I always passed,
always got A’s, but it wasn’t
enough. The tests were weighted and it
was possible to get a grade
that was over one-hundred percent.
So a perfect score was still not
good enough, and they drilled it into
us that our performance on the
exams would determine the rest of
our lives. In one way they were right.
I was so frightened of not being
good enough, all I did was work.
And when the panic attacks started,
I didn’t tell anybody
because it would mean I’d have less time
to study. The day that I was
supposed to take the PSATs,
I had an attack while walking
to school, and fell in front of the bus.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/jamieson-hazeltone

30. Al Hazeltone
When I
was growing up, Spoon River was much
smaller.
My high school class was less than eighty,
and I
think most of us stayed here in the town.
Unlike
the later generations, who left
as soon
as they could. How many of my old
school chums
are here with me now? Life can be long.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/al-hazeltone

31. Doctor Jason Centrone
Long after house calls had funeral and they
become a relic, cried in memory
I was known throughout the town of my infinite kindness
as the one who could be and patience. But when I
called on at any saw my Cassandra
hour of the night. And the hiding at the edge of the
people loved me for it. crowd of mourners, afraid
But the truth was my to show in public
wife was a harpy, my kids what we hid for so many
were strangers, and my work years, all I could do then
was the only thing was hate myself for
that kept me from jumping from being a lying coward.
the Deegan Bridge. Any
excuse to get out
of the house, I would take it.
So, when I finally
passed, the entire
community came to my
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/doctor-jason-centrone

32. Officer Copeland
We rotated with other
squads, but I always loved the night
shift. Sure, during the summer,
when it was too hot to stay calm,
it meant that there was a lot
more crap to deal with. Shootings and
stabbings almost every night.
And of course drugs, always the drugs.
But in the wintertime, most
people would stay inside trying
to keep warm. It was just too
damn cold to make any trouble
And it would be so quiet.
Sometimes I would get out of my
patrol car and walk the streets,
like a beat cop of the old days.
Every night is that quiet
now. I could not be happier.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/officer-copeland

33. Hannah Ward
Jimmy, it’s so clear to
me now. Please don’t
mourn for me anymore.
My husband knew
all about us, and he
suffered as much
agony as we did
in trying to
keep it secret from him.
But give him this
message from me. Tell him
my love for you
did not diminish my
love for him. Love
is not finite. The more
it is shared, the
more it creates. Go and
love him for me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/hannah-ward

34. Paul Robeson Law
My father was Instead, I enjoyed my life.
always going on and on So maybe
about how I was too drunk
I needed to to drive and killed myself by
be responsible to the smashing head-
family, on into that
to our people, tree. But hey, at least I did
to make something of myself. it myself.
My life, it
never belonged
to me, it was always the
property
of someone else.
I couldn’t go along with
that. So I
didn’t become
a lawyer, a judge or a
respected
entrepreneur.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/paul-robeson-law

35. Shelly Leithouse
As a kid, all that I and joy and life to this dreary town.
listened to was classic rock. But
when But the powers that be
I went to the U.K. finally forced me to close down my
for a study abroad year, I was Cathedral. Soon after
exposed to so many I got sick, and to their glee I did
different new sounds. And then my not recover. I don’t
friends dragged know why I could never escape them.
me to the festival And now I will lie here
at Glastonbury, and I spent twelve forever where there is no music.
blissful hours in the
Experimental Sound Field. I walked
away a changed person.
I came back to Spoon River with my
DJ boyfriend and tried
to open a club. He took off soon
thereafter, but I did
not give up. I spent the next decade
trying to bring music
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/shelly-leithouse

36. Christine Siegel
I picked the fight with him that morning
over nothing at all.
He married me, even though I was
pregnant with another
man’s baby. I was scared that he was
regretting it. He left
for work, slamming doors behind him. I
raided the medicine
cabinet. I lay down in bed to
read, but never got up.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/christine-siegel

37. Miguel Elliott
I never listened to
public service announcements
that warned against riding
in-between train cars. Then I
lost my grip, and became
the warning. I’m sorry, Mom.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/miguel-elliott

38. Scott DeMayo
My folks would rarely
let me out of the house.
They were scared I would
get caught up in the gangs
that ran around our
neighborhood. So I stayed
in and was lonely.
And none of it mattered
when that stray bullet
shattered through my bedroom
window. I wish they
would have let me out more.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/scott-demayo

39. Damien McCoy
I knew all the kids at
school whispered about
me behind my back. I
never caught them, but
I knew for sure. If I
tried to tell someone,
they would look at me like
I had gone crazy.
So I did some reading
and do you know what
I found? I was crazy.
Nobody would help
me, they just told me to
get over it. So
I did, by swallowing
a whole bottle of
pills. And it worked. Now, no
one talks about me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/damien-mccoy

40. Taryn, the Dramatist
In the schools of Spoon
River, I
learned the truth of how people were. Their
petty grievances,
their wolfpack
mentality, their tiny codes that
formed the basis of
what they called
“real life.” When I went out into the
wider world, I saw
everywhere
else was basically the same. It was
all a comedy
of manners.
Like my plays, my life, mere comedy.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/taryn-the-dramatist

41. The Sheriff
I had been it at people - cops, criminals,
a local football hero and citizens -
then I joined and make them do my bidding. Then
the Army. I came home to a one night I
parade, and used that brass club to strike Russell
rumors that I had a dozen Diedrich, and
kills. I was he shot me dead. The powers that
recruited into the police, were did all
force and they they could to have Diedrich sent to
put me on the fast track, until death row. But
I became they failed, because I haunted the
the youngest Sheriff in the town’s dreams of the
history. jury foreman and told him that
They wanted an energetic, what I got
they said a was just punishment for my crimes.
charismatic, force for law and
order. It
apparently was a plus that
I was the
meanest son of a bitch in town.
I had a
nightstick made of solid brass and
I would wave
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/the-sheriff

42. Russell Diedrich
I was driving home from a had my case was a close friend
party one night, and the sheriff of Christian Deegan, who had made
pulled me over. I hadn’t Logan the Sheriff in the
been doing anything wrong, but first place, so I knew it would be
he put me face down on the the chair. But Kerns cut a deal
pavement anyway. He searched my to stop his investigation
car without probable cause, into Deegan’s stock fraud and
and found the remains of a joint. manipulation, in exchange
for giving me a shortened
He screamed at me, then pulled out prison sentence. They gave me a
his awful nightstick and beat me thirty-year stretch, but I was
with it. I scrabbled back to let out after fourteen of them.
my car. He’d stopped his search when he
found the pot, so hadn’t found While I was on the inside,
the gun. He swung the stick at my I taught myself how to play chess.
head, and I shot him in the There was a program where you
neck. He fell to the pavement and could play correspondence matches
I ran away while he bled against professionals and
to death. When I turned myself in, ranked experts. One time, I fought an
the guards beat on me without International Master
mercy, until my attorney until he offered me a draw.
Kyle Kerns was able to
have me transferred. But the Judge who
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/russell-diedrich

43. Benton Woods
My service was during
the short lull between
Japan and Korea,
so I never saw
a real battle. But I
preached my example
to my sons, and they both
went to Vietnam,
but never came home. Now
there are no more Woods.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/benton-woods

44. Beverly Domino
I tried not to lie, and so
They made me an outcast.
I saw greed and did not call
it charity. I saw
ugliness and did not call
it beautiful. I saw
ambition and did not call
it service. And I saw
brainwashing and did not call
it an education.
For my candor, I was shunned,
hated. But it did not
matter to me. My inside
and outside were conformed.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/beverly-domino

45. James MacDonald Waring
It was ironic,
no? That the money I made from my
investments in the Trust
allowed me to fund
the town’s arts and humanities, and
provide a platform for
Deegan’s enemies.
Like the theater, symphony, my wife’s
foundation. And that the
collapse of that same
Trust ruined me and silenced all those
voices. While Deegan went
all but untouched. If
I did not know better, I’d think that
he planned it all this way.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/james-macdonald-waring

46. Shaun Bolton
The embarrassments, smile to my face.
the mundane injuries Now there’s simply nothing.
and the insults of
daily life were always
too much for me. My
skin, always thin, never
hardened. And one day,
my wife complaining how
I burned the chicken
again was all I could
take, so I opened
the window and jumped out.
But even here, there
is no rest. No rest, and
no freedom to change.
When I was alive, at
least there were a few
things that brought a fleeting
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/shaun-bolton

47. Ruth Middleton-Ross
All throughout school, time to follow my own ambitions.
they told me I was special. Brilliant, But the drugs they
gifted, destined gave me to keep
for some greatness. my moods under control prevented
A leader of tomorrow. But I me from thinking
got out into clearly, and when
the big world and I tried to stop taking them, my dear
nobody cared. The only jobs I husband had me
could get were as committed. When
secretary, I followed their rules, they called me a
waitress, model or prostitute. Then success. Somehow,
a rich man took I was never
a fancy to successful enough to be allowed
me and proposed marriage. It was just my liberty.
another kind
of job, blending
all the others. But I hoped that the
trade off would give
me money and
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/ruth-middleton-ross

48. Alexander Flagg
I spent years organizing protests
against the War in
Vietnam. Later I became an
entrepreneur and
made a killing. When they started up
another war, I
tried to make my voice heard in the great
debate. But I had
too many friends in the differing
camps, so neither side
would trust me. Pick your side and stay with
it no matter what.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/alexander-flagg

49. Dr. Gregory Vreeland
Doctors keep selling them. Then the deaths
are supposed to be public started, and I went to prison
servants, priests and saviors. But we for the
also rest of my life. At least my
have to make money. And woe creditors couldn’t reach me there.
to anyone who tries to do
one at
the expense of the other.
I was just trying to help my
patients.
At first, I was as convinced
as my clients that my weight-loss
products
really worked. By the time I
was able to admit that they
didn’t,
I was so far into debt
that I didn’t have any choice
but to
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/dr-gregory-vreeland

50. Robb Chess
You won’t believe was all a game.
what I say, but all
that money that All games can be gamed.
you worry your lives
over, it’s all
imaginary.
And your morals
are just handicaps
beaten in to
you by all of your
competitors.
Nobody has your
interests in
mind except for you.
I built and lost
fortunes a dozen
times over, and
was unconcerned. It
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/robb-chess

51. Claire Battaglia
My mother was always
sick, and I was born blind. All my life
people pitied me. But
what they did not see that in taking
away my sight, the Lord
gave me the gift of patience. As the
pace of world made all
those around me sick and unhappy,
I built a life and a
home and a family that was an
oasis of calm. My
husband Dom fought crippling fears all
his life, until I helped
him find peace. In a world devoted
to breaking people, my
children grew up strong, whole and unbent.
I lived a life full of
light and color. I have no complaints.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/claire-battaglia

52. Judge Welington Bolton
I was renowned for
having the largest personal law
library in three states.
Judges and lawyers
from all over the country would ask
to borrow my volumes.
I even loaned one
to Justice Stewart once. I guess it
was fitting then, that when
there was that giant
explosion at the shopping mall they
were building down the street
from the courthouse, that
my bookshelves would crush me to death. The
law giveth and taketh.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/judge-welington-bolton

53. Clarence Brusso
When I married her, I thought the not imagine saying
urges would go away. the words to my blind little girl.
But they never did, and I was Then one day, I didn’t
forced to sneak out, to make just hear Jesus. I saw him in
excuses, to pretend I was front of me. Then I was
working and not at the out of time to tell anything
baths. Then she became ill and I to any one at all.
stayed close to home taking
care of her. Which is how we made
our poor little girl. And
years later, when the men in my
secret fellowship all
began dying horrible deaths,
I began to hear the
voice of Jesus, urging me to
confess what I had done.
I was going to. I wanted
to. I just kept putting
it off and delaying. I could
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/clarence-brusso

54. Kharyn Green
When I grew my breasts, I secretly they were
asked my parents what free to do. Their scorn set
they meant. But they wouldn’t me on my path. Had
explain. I asked my they answered my questions
teachers, and they told me truthfully in the
to keep quiet. I first place, maybe things would
asked my friends and they laughed have been different.
at me. So I went
to find out myself. And
I learned. I learned a
lot. From boys and girls my
own age and from men
like Giovanni Moss,
who people thought was
taking advantage of
me. But the truth was
that they sneered at me and
called me a slut for
doing what they all wished
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/kharyn-green

55. Giovanni Moss
I was never the best looking watching the young
man in the room. nurses laugh at me. I wonder
But I knew how to dress, and how if things would have
to stand in the been different had I taken
right light, how to speak to women less, given more.
with just the right
tone. How to walk into a room
and make every
head turn. How to smile at the
married men while
taking their wives and daughters. Most
importantly,
how to take what I wanted and
get out with a
minimum of fuss. The mistake
I made was that
I grew old. And I ended up
living alone
in a shabby nursing home, and
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/giovanni-moss

56. Hans Bluff
I was always Broderick Deegan’s
chasing Kharyn Green, real estate firm.
hoping she would The week after I
let me in. But for made VP, the
some reason, she Galleria burned,
always told me no. the company
When I saw her collapsed, and I lost
with Giovanni everything. I
Moss, I was so realized that I
embarrassed, that I had traded the
decided in chase of one hussy
that instant that I for another,
would stop spending and neither wanted
time on frivolous anything to
pursuits and I do with me. Some guys
threw myself into were just born to
my schoolwork. I be losers, I guess.
went to business school,
and later used
my inheritance
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/25/hans-bluff
to buy in to

57. Andrew Cairns
They always told me that
my dream of playing pro
ball was impossible,
so I left this town as
soon as I was able.
I never made it to
the majors, but I was
good enough to pitch in
Mexico and Taiwan
for many years. But then
the gamblers threatened me,
and when I told them to
shove it, they shot me down.
When I came here, I was
consoled by an ancient
roman ghost named Martius.
He said I had earned much
more than I had received.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/25/andrew-cairns

58. Darryl Cordova
My father owned the shop, shop before reaching sixty.
and I spent most of my youth
working in it. Then he
passed it on to me and I
spent all of my days and
nights there. I somehow found time
to get a wife and have
some children, and they also
became entwined in the
life of the shop. I never
took a day off, never
had a vacation, and I
never closed except on
Christmas day. Someone once asked
me what I would do when
I got to retirement
age. I didn’t have an
answer. Turned out I didn’t
need one. I died at the
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/darryl-cordova

59. Gwendolyn Yates
They told me I didn’t have a work call me a failure.
ethic, because I But I had more joy than all of them,
didn’t want to spend my life in an combined, ever had.
office or a school.
I always asked them who invented
work in the first place?
What a funny custom, to waste your
precious time doing
something for another’s benefit,
while you get scraps of
paper in return. I preferred to
sing. You don’t need good
credit to sing, don’t need a mortgage.
Don’t need anyone’s
good opinion, neither. Don’t even
need much in the way
of food, clothing or shelter, since you
can get all of them
through singing. So many of them
would
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/gwendolyn-yates

60. Helene Duluca
We were both thirteen, but
when they caught us they all
blamed Charlie and told me
he forced himself on me.
And so I wouldn’t get
in trouble, I agreed.
That was how I learned that
sex was bad and I could
never let it be found
out that I liked it. So
I spent years taking it
secretly, with strangers
in bars and offices
and shops. Until one night,
I picked the wrong man, and
he sent me to this place.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/helene-deluca

61. Rabbi Stern
Everyone thought me
to be wise, and they
were heartbroken at
my wasting illness.
The temple rallied
around me and kept
me warm, loved during
my slow descent. None
of them ever found
out that my disease
was a secret taste
for heroin, a
habit that took two
decades to kill me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/rabbi-stern

62. Rita Chavez
I knew I was
the second choice, and I
was overjoyed
when my rival left. Then
Pedro belonged
to me. But many years
later, Carmen
came back, and I lost him.
It took two years
for him to get up the
courage to leave
me, but my soul died that
very first day.
And my love for him turned
to hatred, as
I vowed to never let
him out of my
grasp. I wonder what would
have happened if
I had just set him free.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/rita-chavez

63. Pedro Teves
Poor Rita, I swear I was never free
I never wanted of knowing what I
to hurt you. But we had done to you. I
both knew I always could never forget
loved Carmen, and as
much as I tried to
put it out of my
mind, we were meant to
be. I wish it had
not been so. I wish
it was us who were
supposed to have been
together. That way,
I would not have had
to cause you so much
pain. And even though
my life with Carmen
was everything I
had ever wanted,
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/pedro-teves

64. Wayne Garcia
I had so many
opportunities, and
I let each of them
pass by. For good reasons,
I believed. They were
risky, they were too hard,
they would cost too much
of myself. So I stayed
home, and stayed safe. Now
look at me. I ended
up here anyway,
with nothing to show for
it. The riskiest
thing is to do nothing.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/wayne-garcia

65. Spencer Chadwick
They said I was crazy, a
man of seventy, marrying
a girl of thirty-five. They
said she was after my money.
Well, it was money I had,
and companionship I lacked. I
did not care that she was bought.
My long years in finance taught me
that everybody is bought
and sold, and everybody buys
and sells themselves. So I had
a few years with her and she got
all of my money after
I was gone. So what? It’s not as
if I can use any of
it here. And I’d rather she had
it than my lying children.
Whores are the only honest ones.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/05/spencer-chadwick

66. Gary, the Pilot
All my life, all
I wanted
was to break the bonds
of gravity.
To ascend
higher and higher
into the sky.
But we are
all tethered, Earth-bound.
One day, we will
escape and
take our place on high.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/gary-the-pilot

67. Ng the Salesman
All things been such a
are business cancer on the town if Shelly
propositions. Would we expend Leithouse
so much paid into
money and that same racket? Would the never-
material and lives in the ending
Middle drug war have
East, if they any point other than a tool
didn’t have oil we needed? for our
And if leaders to
Daisey Kane’s restrict the same rights and freedoms
damned trade was so injurious that brought
to the me to this
welfare of country? It’s not conspiracy
the public, wouldn’t the powers- if it’s
that-be policy
shut her down, and happens out in the open.
regardless of how much money
she paid
them for their
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/ng-the-salesman
protection? Would the Sanctuary

68. Mayor Ellen Garrity
My good friends. I hoped
that my lifetime of
service would be valued. That
you would look kindly
on my attempts to
save you from the crime and drugs
and obscenities
that are a constant
threat to our way of life if
we do not remain
vigilant. If you
valued my sacrifice, then
you would stop that slut
Maggie Garzan and
that idiot Ridley boy
from defiling my
grave with their lustful
coupling almost every night!
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/mayor-ellen-garrity

69. Miles Kagan
I paid for many town. I never believed
campaigns, and helped to make in anything or
the Mayor’s Office in anyone again.
like your own home. But more
than that, you were the
fixed point on my compass,
the mother from whom
I needed approval
for each endeavor.
But when I finally
got close up and saw
how the sausage was made,
that the face you showed
to the world was a mask
that hid your spite and
venality and your
arrogance, my heart
was broken. I quit the
party and quit the
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/miles-kagan

70. Ron and Leo
While alive,
we were not
allowed to
live truly
openly
together.
Were never
permitted
to show our
love to the
town or the
world. But now
we are here
together,
forever.
And what you
think matters
not one bit.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/ron-and-leo

71. Margaret Garzan
After Micah Ridley left town a brain, but gorgeous to
without me, I swore I’d look at. He flattered me with his
never put my fate in the hands attention until I
of a man again. So foolishly agreed to marry
when I finally moved to the him. I should have seen that
city, I turned myself he’d do to me what I’d done to
into a woman who needed my husband. And now I’m
nobody and took what back in Spoon River. Our fates are
she wanted. I socialized my never fully our own.
way up the ranks of the
elite and married a wealthy
lawyer. He was fun when
he was drunk. After about a
year, he died suddenly,
and I inherited it all.
I moved to Rome and spent
the money for a living. I
took a lover, a man
ten years my junior. Not much of
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/margaret-garzan

72. Mrs. Sofia Garzan
I designed legislation than
lingerie for a to simply talk with them?
living. So when my girl
Maggie got Didn’t all
her reputation, of their desperate
of course the town whispered attempts to “rescue the
that it was family”
my fault. And when the end up destroying
kids followed a fad where the family instead?
underthings
were worn openly,
of course the answer was
to picket
my shop and brand me
as anti-family.
Were they so
scared of their children
that it was easier
to enact
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/mrs-sofia-garzan

73. Judge Sy Goldberg
When I was alive, tilted
I would from the start. The fairness that I
sit on the bench, listen to the prided myself on
petitioners in was just
front of the self-reinforcing bias
me, and I prided myself on of a system built
being fair, treating to crush.
the poor I should have been their advocate.
the same as the wealthy. But now, Instead I handed
buried here, I can the axe
listen to the headsman. I sent Lukasz
to the curses from the many Harding to Death Row.
whom I sent here, I But I
can hear was a hundred times more guilty.
what the prosecutors could keep
from the record, I
can see
the truth. The poor were not equal
at my bar. The field
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/judge-sy-goldberg

74. Busker Barney
I was playing for coins great musicians that I’m
at the Courthouse Bus Stop. never at a loss for
It had been a long day; somebody to jam with.
I’d made very little.
When Russell Diedrich and
Dutch Wallis came along,
high on something, they gave
me twenty dollars to
play “Gloria” while they
bellowed along. When a
policeman started towards
us to stop their racket,
they ran away, pushing
me towards the cop to slow
him down. I tripped and fell
into the street, right in
the path of the number
7 bus. Now I’m here,
where there are so many
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/busker-barney

75. The Salaryman
When I was of the firm, with a family and
ten, my folks gave me a super-8 a mortgage,
camera, and no more time left. So I gave up
and I fell in love with making films. my dreams. But
In college, by the time I passed on and was sent
I won a prize at a festival here, I had
and I moved made enough money and knew enough
to the city to break in to the people so
industry. that my kids could work those entry jobs
But all the entry-level jobs were for free. Each
held by the generation gets a bit further.
children of the rich and connected
who could work
for no money. I took an office
job and tried
to work around it. Before I knew
it, twenty
years had passed, and I’d become the vice-
president
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/the-salaryman

76. Alexandra Austen
That house was the cause of all of our strife.
He inherited it
from his mother, and all his siblings
were jealous and never
forgave him. Then all the property
tax increase forced us
to sacrifice everything to keep
paying for it. And no
matter how much I tried to convince
him that we needed to
just leave it behind and start over
somewhere new, he never
could see how to extricate himself.
So one night, after we
fought about money and our future,
I torched the awful place.
Burned the fucking thing to the ground. He
divorced me, and sued me
But he never understood that I
did it to set him free.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/alexandra-austen

77. Glenn Austen
It was a little and his desire to a standoff, and I tried
bit after my sister cover it up. Saw to provoke the cops
Alexandra was the gruesome photos of into doing the job
arrested for arson how he tried. And as for me, but they were
that I got chosen I listened, I despaired, remarkably restrained.
for jury duty. I because I saw that I don’t know why. It
tried to get excused no matter how much you took four years of trials
by telling them about love at the start, it and appeals before
her, but the judge was always turns to hatred. they killed me anyway.
unmoved. They selected I would have saved them
me to serve on the We found him guilty, the time and the trouble.
murder trial of that and that night I went home
dentist, Doctor Stahl to my pregnant wife
for killing his patient and shot her in the head.
Zadie-Mae Lemmons. If the boys had been
Each day we sat there and home I would have killed them
heard evidence of too. As it was, when
their tawdry affair, of I tried to shoot myself,
how she got pregnant, the gun jammed. There was
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/glenn-austen

78. D.A. Antonio Jackson
My life and healthy. And I learned that
was devoted to bringing morality cannot be
justice, to punishing the divorced
wicked, from chemistry. I think of
and upholding the standards all those I damned to prison
of the community. My or worse,
finest and I recall the triumph
hour was when I sent the I felt when Austen went to
murderer Glenn Austen to the chair.
death row. I wonder if anything
But my son was diagnosed
with schizophrenia, so I did helped anyone. I
I quit doubt it.
my office as the District My son was just another
Attorney and devoted big case that I had to win.
myself
to his care. I studied the
working of the human brain,
damaged
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/da-antonio-jackson

79. Jonathan Mellor
I studied all the great word men,
Bruce, Carlin, Hicks. Did you
know that as part of his act,
Mort Sahl used to just read
the Warren Commission report?
These were my heroes, the
comics who made people laugh while
forcing their eyes open
even if it meant insulting
and enraging them. I
was good at that part of the gig.
Leaving some no-name club
in some flyspeck town, somebody –
I never saw who – hit
me in the head with a cement
brick. I never woke up.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/jonathan-mellor

80. Johan Torres
I was born with a
defective valve in my
heart, so my life was
contained, limited, and
measured in tiny
doses. But that once with
Isabel under
the infinite stars, I
gave her everything
I had. It cost me, but
I have no regrets.
Brevity is not lack.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/johan-torres

81. LoydPahk
When I had the
stroke, I was still
waiting for my
promotion to
Director to
go through. It was
going to make
it all better.
Didn’t even
want that damn job.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/loyd-pahk

82. Park Shin Min
My tiny town a one-way plane from that thought.
outside Wonju ticket to When the cancer
so stifled America. came, I forbade
me, I left as And who should be Patty from
soon as I could. in the seat sending me back
I worked in next to mine, but to Korea.
the clubs near the old Sergeant Pat, This is home.
American who I knew
bases. I quite well from the
waltzed with Majors old days. We struck
and traded shots a deal and
with Privates. I lived with him
But I always in Spoon River.
knew it was a For more than
short-term gig, twenty years, they
and I saved my all believed we
money. At age were married.
thirty-six, We did nothing
I bought myself to dissuade them
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/park-shin-min

83. Matthew Twombley
I got Doctor Centrone to
give me Viagra, but didn’t
tell him about the heart meds
I’d gotten from Doctor Golden.
I wanted to be able
to give Saskia everything,
especially after the
pain of her first two marriages.
She deserved it all, and I
deserved to finally live, no
matter how my complaining
children tried to persuade me that
I didn’t belong with a
woman thirty years my junior.
What they never understood
was that she asked me for nothing.
So I gave her everything
I had without reservation.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/matthew-twombley

84. Alejandro Mejias
The confusion does not surprise me.
Very few actual
remains were recovered from the pit,
so how were they supposed
to know that the investment banker
Nathaniel Terrel is
not entombed here, just parts of me, a
minimum-wage busboy.
I wonder if they sent his ashes
to my family in
Guatemala. Or if we are both
scattered across the world.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/nathaniel-terrel

85. A Powerful Lawyer
I I kept even the smallest claim
counted myself among the most from reaching my clients.
prosperous attorneys When
in I died, there were memorials
the state. I spoke for the mighty: and tributes, and a front
the Second Spoon River page
Bank, obituary. Now, I lie
Development Authority here, and I can feel all
Partners, and Limited the
Re, insects scuttling across my
who insured the Galleria.
I knew all the pressure dead skin, every maggot
points, that
where to apply the leverage, squirms to life from gnawing on my
how to make things happen. desiccated remains.
I
never lost a case. They rarely
even made it into
court.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/a-powerful-lawyer

86. Kathy Folds
You stayed with me through
all the chemo, the
radiation, the
surgeries. Ten years
of hacking pieces
of your wife away.
And you tried to stay
strong for me. But I
saw you shriveling.
When the cancer came
back to eat at me,
and I saw I would
never again be
the woman that you
married, I let you
go. I let me go.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/kathy-folds

87. Joanie the Musician
I had to learn to use
my sorrow,
to turn it into my music.
I wrote songs about the
sadness my
entire life. And now I can’t
believe all the things that
I didn’t
see, all the joy I turned away
from. What I was feeling,
it wasn’t
despair. This, this here, is despair.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/28/joanie-the-musician

88. Mrs. Schneider
I dreamed of
divorcing him. But I stayed. For the
children. That’s
what Judge Goldhamer advised him. And
I got the
same sermon from Reverend Halty.
Marriage is
sacred. So I stayed. For the children.
But feelings
can never be totally repressed.
So we raised
them in a home full of poison and
misery.
They grew to hate us both equally
and fled as
soon as they could. I don’t really blame them.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/28/mrs-schneider

89. Mrs. Mitzi Schultz
Sometimes, the program again and
only thing that helped again, and the idea that
me get through it was my set there is an
of tapes of ultimate justice.
the old Twilight Zone. I prayed for that justice to
My husband had nothing to fall on those
do with how who stole him and the
Deegan’s investment life we had planned. I still pray.
bank collapsed. But he had a
big title
and no true friends, so
he took the fall. He went to
prison and
left me alone to
raise our children. I did my
part, and they
grew up the best they
could. What kept me going was
watching that
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/29/mrs-mitzi-schultz

90. Rev. Clay Halty
Of all my saw their children,
accomplishments and their calm, quiet
in the decades I
preached in Spoon
River, of all
the sermons and the
conversions
and retreats, the
one thing I’m most proud
of is how
I was able
to keep the Schneiders,
with God’s help,
from succumbing
to the secular
temptation
to rip their whole
family apart.
Each time I
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/29/rev-clay-halty

91. Allan Bivans
I spent most of my was the most valued
life struggling for the substance in the world. And
control over my I imagined two
family’s chain of gas Silk Road-trading brothers
stations. My brother locked in a never-
resented me because ending feud over their
our father sent me salt, and how silly
to college, while he had that would look to modern
to stay home and work folks. At that moment,
the business. When Dad died I decided to sell
and left it all to him my half of the
us, he did everything business. I was on my
he could to force me way to tell him, and
out and make my life Hell. imagining how I
Every day was filled would use the proceeds
with arguments about to start a whole new life
oil and gasoline. for myself far from
One day, I was in a here, when I had the stroke.
restaurant, looking
at the salt shakers on
all the tables, and
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/29/allan-bivans
recalling that once, salt

92. Rev. Jeremy Sheaffer
After I
passed, the Church auctioned off
my effects as a fundraiser.
It was my
idea, to let each of
them have a tiny piece of their
shepherd for
a memorial, as
he departed for a distant,
better land.
But that didn’t mean I
wanted my filing cabinets
bought by Bob
Clemmond, who everyone
knew was the town’s worst drug dealer.
He dumped all
of my papers at the
recycling plant. The Almighty
only knows
what disgusting poisons
he displaced all my sermons with.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/rev-jeremy-sheaffer

93. Roosevelt Feinstein
I fought them all of my days. For rights
for all. For freedom of conscience, for
freedom of choice, for freedom from fear.
But long years in the State House tend to
blur the factions in the eyes of the
people. And you can’t win every fight.
So when I won, I was “just doing
what I was supposed to do." When I
compromised, I was “complicit with
evil.” And when I was beaten, I
was “pathetic.” By the end, my once-
loud voice had been diminished to a
whisper. Oh, they gave me an ornate
funeral with grand remembrances.
But during the eulogy, I know
my unwrinkled successors cut deals
and traded horses in the cloak room.
I hope they fare better than I did.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/roosevelt-feinstein

94. Judge Terence Visser
All those liberal
lions, Kerns and Feinstein and
O’Meara, they loved to
laugh at me, and judge
me for my aspirations.
For some reason, they felt
I was not worthy
to stand in their company.
How much did they regret
their snobbery, when
my years as Deegan’s counsel
led to a seat on the
Bench? How much did they
have to swallow their jokes and
plaster fake smiles on their
faces when making
a petition to My Court?
Oh, how I made them pay.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/judge-terence-visser

95. Kelvin Platt
Thom Kerns always complained failures. I had no
how ashamed he was identity of my
that his children never own. That’s why I ran
amounted to much. for the seat on the School
He never understood Board. I spent all my
that I had it so money, but I still lost.
much worse. My children were My kids wanted to
successful beyond support me after that.
anyone’s reckoning. I would not let them.
They all left me, to I pushed them away. My
go to New York, Paris, end came soon after.
Kuala Lumpur,
Berlin, and God knows where
else. They rarely came
home. And all anyone
asked me was about
them. Every success they
had made me that much
more ashamed of my own
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/kelvin-platt

96. Thom Kerns
I never quite
got why Kelvin Platt
was always so
miserable when
folks asked about
his amazing kids.
I’d have given
almost anything
to have just one
of mine become so
luminous. In
and out of jail. On
and off of drugs.
They were disgraceful
and disgusting.
Shame, or the drinking
that covered it –
not sure which killed me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/thom-kerns

97. Christine Novell
They never knew what to call the thing,
whatever it was I
had. Lupus, Lyme, Epstein-Barr, Fibro,
CFS, Depression,
allergies, and on and on. Or worse,
it was all in my head,
and no insurance code applied.
Every year, a new drug
that was supposed to work, which only
made it worse. Never a
moment without pain that didn’t feel
wrong, artificial, not
me. But now there is no more pain and
I’m finally at peace.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/christine-novell

98. Ikrimahibn Khalid
They were always making fun
of the way
I dressed and the way I prayed.
Always trying to convert
me. After,
they looked at me full of
suspicion and hatred. Or
with fear, as
if I would detonate
myself at any minute.
I tried to
show them the truth of my
people and our history.
Then, Willy
Halty, the Minister’s
son, beat me to death with a
baseball bat.
Peace be unto you all.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/ikrimah-ibn-khalid

99. Simon Leigh Goldhamer
People say they like shun, reject, deny
the truth. But the truth that it even could be possible.
is they really prefer a story.
Story is the world
And if the story The world is story.
isn’t the truth, they’ll We can’t see differently, and believe
transform that story into the truth. fairy tales. Like the
Holy Trinity
But it goes further of the Beginning, Middle and End.
than that. Truth only
becomes capable of being seen,
recognized as the
truth, if it can be
seen in the outline of a story.
And we’ve become so
that if it does not
fit into the story, we cannot
even see it. We
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/simon-leigh-goldhamer

100. Moreland, the Columnist
I got fired from the paper
for doing
the same thing that got me lauded in
the first place. I would talk to the
powerful
and write about them. But I did not
take dictation. I tried to show
them as they
truly were. They usually didn’t
like it. But it was more than a
fair trade for
their dominion over us, I thought.
But I crossed the line when I wrote
my profile
of Judge Goldhamer. He was not pleased.
Somebody called someone, and soon
I was out
of a job. But nobody said I
didn’t get the story right. I
take that to
my grave and you bet it keeps me warm.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/23/moreland-the-columnist

101. Harmonie Fisher
Life was a competition. For
me to succeed others
had to fail. So I made damn sure
they would. I undermined
confidence, ruined plans, spoiled
hopes, and bent those around
me to do what I wanted. When
they broke, I discard
them and simply found others I
could manipulate. But
eventually, I ran out
of people and I ran
out of time. In the end I was
alone. If you prevail
in a competition and the
losers are not there to
see it, then the victory is
empty and meaningless.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/23/harmonie-fisher

102. Christian Deegan
So, everybody hated and feared
me, you say? What of it?
While the so-called moralists and the
righteous and the preening
intellectuals bleated about
meaning and justice and
truth, I laughed at them. The only truth,
the only meaning, is
influence. It’s the first law of the
universe. How do you
move a thing that will not move? I spent
a life collecting and
using influence to make the world
in my image. Lesser
people complained and judged, but they were
merely too cowardly
to take that power for themselves. They
can’t touch me. Never could.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/23/christian-deegan

103. MaureeneTringo
After years of work, reams of forms, defend my new homeland.
and waiting and waiting,
I finally qualified to I wonder if anybody
be an American made Deegan swear that oath.
citizen. I went in to the
city that day to take
part in a special swearing-in
ceremony, led by
the Attorney General of
the whole country! And I
almost missed it. I couldn’t get
to the courthouse, because
the road was blocked for some bigwigs.
(Later, I found out it
was Christian Deegan, being freed
from some tax burden.) But
in spite of that huge motorcade,
I got there in time to
take my oath to serve, protect and
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/maureene-tringo

104. Thomas Winter
We were one of the first died in an accident.
families, founders of Hank overdosed on pills
Spoon River. My great-great- after his great disgrace.
grandfather built our house. Sally’s husband beat her
Generations of the until she became a
Winters came from that home, ghost of herself. Philip
to write our name across contracted a syndrome,
the world. Until I failed undiagnosable
them all. I did every and incurable. And
thing I was supposed to – Maria just gave up
sent my children to the for some reason no one
best schools, secured for them ever learned. All of them
prestigious jobs and well- broken by life. While I
bred partners. I followed succeeded at every
the plan. I grew richer goal, but preserving the
and more influential. family legacy.
But James embezzled and
fled overseas. Janie
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/thomas-winter

105. Phillip Thomas Winter
I was in and out of all not answer no. So I
the best hospitals, and redoubled my efforts.
all the advanced clinics, I demanded my father
while father spent his money treat her like a daughter.
trying to make me well. But then I died, and I
I had a theory that don’t know if he did or if
the nurses at these places she just moved on. I wish,
were all selected for Sienna. Oh, I wish.
their allure, so as to
seduce a patient into
getting well. It never
worked. Until I came home,
and they hired Sienna.
She was not pretty. But
she was beautiful. How
I wanted to get well for
her. The harder I tried
the worse it got. I asked
her to marry me. She did
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/phillip-thomas-winter

106. Maria Winter
When you lose your soul-
mate, you lose a piece of
yourself. And when your
soul-mate turns their back on
you, the little bit
of you that remains is
poisoned. They thought I
gave up and hid from the
world. But really I
was trying to drive the
poison out, purge and
rebuild myself. I was
almost able to.
If I’d had five more years,
maybe I would have.
But I ran out of time.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/maria-winter

107. Paul Welch
I’m so sorry good enough for you
Maria. I did again. I’m so
not meant it to ashamed, Maria.
happen like it did. You deserved so
But life in the much better than me.
city was strange and
complicated.
And I feared that Spoon
River would make
me feel trapped and bored.
I was far from
bored in the city,
even before
Rachel LeDoux found
me. But once I
was with her, I was
trapped anyway,
and I knew that I
could never be
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/paul-welch

108. Rachel LeDoux
The funny thing is, I I lost him, and with him
never even liked sex my best candidate for
all that much. But every security. After
body else did, so it there was just a string of
gave me power over diminishing prospects.
them. I tormented my
stepfather, until I
was thrown out of the house.
I was still learning and
refining. I moved to
the city, where I plowed
through a list of lovers,
men and women, each one
dancing to my tune. Paul
Welch was my best score; I
thought I might even make
him marry me. But then
one of my exes warned
him about my past, so
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/rachel-ledoux

109. Anya Kirillov
I came here from things to placate her wrath. So we
Poland when I was a girl, and both stayed out of
got work as a sight until the baby came. Then
domestic in the White home. One they quietly
day, when Mrs. sent me to work somewhere else. Years
White was out, Mr. White trapped me later, I found
in the kitchen. DolphKirilov, and we built our
I kept quiet, afraid they would own family.
send me back to And it was sweet. But whenever
Poland. But soon I began to people saw me
show. And Mrs. crying at the eloquence of
White came to me. I thought she would one of Benson
kill me. But she White’s speeches, they had no idea
had a plan. They had no children that inside I
of their own, so was screaming that he was my son.
she would take the baby and claim
that it was hers.
I’m sure that Mr. White gave her
many other
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/anya-kirillov

110. Benson White
All that I achieved – Judge,
Congressman, and a
Candidate for the State
House – was possible
only because of the
inheritance I
received from my parents,
Thomas and Gail White.
From my father, I got
my morals, ethics,
and sense of duty. From
my mother, I learned
how to take all of life
in stride, and rejoice
even in the parts that
seemed to be setbacks.
Everything that I was,
was because of them.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/benson-white

111. Gil Tam
I always believed there
argued that was no such
religion thing as an
and God were afterlife.
just fictions. So I’m not
Stories used sure what this
to explain is right here,
things beyond where I am.
our ken. It But I am
did not make willing to
me the most entertain
popular theories on
man in Spoon it without
River, a bowing down
town that was and giving
quite pious. praise to the
But I stuck Christian god.
to my guns.
I also
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/03/gil-tam

112. Steve Biscoe
Gil and I loved to
argue religion. He
was a wonderful
fellow and a hopeless
secularist. When
my cancer was in its
final stages, he
would visit me often,
and I looked forward
to those more than any
perfunctory drop-
in by the folks who just
felt obligated.
The last thing I said to
him before I died
was that I looked forward
to settling the
question once and for all.
But wouldn’t you know
it, he’s still not convinced.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/03/steve-biscoe

113. Laurent Arno
I knew she cheated on me.
A Minister
cannot divorce his wife and
expect to keep
his position. So I bore
it. Even as
I took on more outside work.
I wrote books on
how to live a Godly life.
None of them did
too well, as if people could
intuit that
I was lying. I prayed for
one of them to
succeed, so I could afford
to abandon
the Ministry and divorce
her. I never did.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/laurent-arno

114. Imogene Arno-Niles
I kept my secrets in life.
I’ll keep them in
death. There is nothing
I can say to you that you
could possibly
understand. Move on.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/imogene-arno-niles

115. Eugene Blantz
I entered politics
to make things better. But
after all the years, all
the deals, all the goddamned
compromises it took
before I finally
won election to the
State Legislature, I
don’t think that I had the
faintest notion what was
right anymore. So I
sold my vote on the big
eminent domain bill
that favored the Deegan
Trust, and naturally I
got caught and went to jail.
I wish I had stuck to
being a shoe salesman.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/eugene-blantz

116. Lonnie Marchetti
A fuck-up like me, a
man who had wasted decades on drugs
and booze, who had cut a
swath of destruction through lives in three
states; it’s ironic that
such a wretch could come out the other
side of his Trial and
be able to lead a ministry
for the fallen. I had
replaced the ecstasy of meth with
the bliss of Jesus. He
saved me in every sense of the word.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/lonnie-marchetti

117. Sheri O’Brien
You may have gone far
away from here, and had
a life rich with sights
and experiences
that far outstripped what
I had in my short time.
But you know at your
core, that it will never
be enough, it will
never make amends, it
will never make you
forget that you have it
all because of what
you stole from me. But still,
even though I’m gone
too early, my time was
more truly alive
than your glamorous lie.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/sheri-o'brien

118. “Big Ed” Thag
I guess there’s to live
always in a town where
been two kinds of those folks were
folks, the ones the ones
who see in charge. But, I
things how they are, have a hunch
and the ones that if
who see the other team
them as they think had been in
they ought to control,
be. I they woulda not
had struggles a lot. treated me
I gotta all that
say that much different.
most of them were
caused by the
second
type. Guess I had
the bad luck
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/big-ed-thag

119. MireleBulinski
Tell me – if you could do it
all over again, start over
from the beginning, with a
clean slate, would you? Neither would I.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/mirelle-bulinski

120. The Anonymous
He was rich.
He was powerful. He took what he
wanted from
me and discarded the emptied husk.
Then his men
tidied up and dumped me in the woods.
The moment
he saw me, I didn’t stand a chance.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/the-anonymous

121. Joel Addams Loxley
I know it’s not lofty heights, acquired
popular opinion, baggage and beholders,
and it flies in the face creditors and
of the myth of compromises. And yet
America. But you most would say he was the
must admit that, being better choice to
born wealthy and hold the power. But be
with needs fulfilled, I was careful what leaders you
able to study the wish for. At least
intricacies the independently
of public policy wealthy can be stolid,
and government and turn dispassionate
myself into in their government. Their
an exemplary, true, bread's already buttered.
servant of the people.
Whereas my chief
rival DekeStayn, on his
long climb through the ranks to
ascend to his
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/joel-addams-loxley

122. DekeStayn
Breeding and an
education are
nice, but I’ll take
a worker that’s made
his own way in
the world. I started
sweeping up a
factory floor, and
by the end, there
was nobody in
America
who would not listen
to what I said.
Power earned, twice as
strong as power
inherited. The
one avenue
to true liberty.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/deke-stayn

123. Pierce Leithouse
People think it was the
way the town leaders demonized my
daughter that led me to
defect to the other party and
lead them to drive out my
former friends. And it’s true that the switch
happened then. But more than
pride or fatherly protectiveness
was behind it. It struck
me, suddenly, that people who crave
power over others
in the name of security and
order, are truly just
interested in power for its
own sake. And that power,
once ceded, can never be reclaimed.
And I saw my part in
constructing an architecture of
coercion. I felt called
upon to repent and make amends.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/pierce-leithouse

124. Howard, the Station Boss
Everybody clamors secure. I knew
for the truth. enough to bring them all
I could give it to you in down. But why
any way you in the world would I? Besides,
pleased. We liked to deride none of you want
those who claimed to know where the bodies
truth was purely subjective are buried.
as being French And democracy is just
Communists. But really, for schoolchildren.
they were our
best friends. My job was to
manufacture
truth, to serve whoever
was pulling
the strings. If the Mayor stayed
in office, if
Deegan’s profits stayed fat,
and if my
ratings remained high, I was
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/howard,-the-station-boss

125. Maryann Stillson
I ran my laundry for most
of my days. I cleaned clothes for all
kinds of people. Rich and poor,
liberal and conservative,
the influential and the
invisible. They all had sweat
stains, brown streaks, stink. Don’t care who
you were. Only the dead are clean.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/maryann-stillson

126. Doug Linke
All I said was national pride be
that American self-evident?
policy had And if you have to
something to do with bellow it and
it, some measure enforce it through fear
of blame. A fairly and coercion,
innocuous isn’t it worthless?
statement, and one that
many learned
people would agree
with behind closed
doors. But I said it
out loud, on the
air, so they destroyed
my career and
slandered my name. All
in the name of
patriotism.
But shouldn’t that
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/doug-linke

127. Philip Dent
My lifetime belonged to and flattering
Christian Deegan. his vanity. I had
I gave his bank my time, no time left to
eleven, twelve, build my own life. Which is
thirteen hours every why I chose the
day, six days a front of his office to
week. And on Sundays, I shoot myself in
went to his church the head. Hopefully, I
and heard to his minister, got a few drops
the Reverend of blood on his handmade
Sheaffer, tell me how my Italian shoes.
toil would get
me into heaven. But
all I saw from
that work was a dingy
apartment and
a dingy life. I spent
all of my days
enriching his accounts
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/philip-dent

128. Ernie Coffin
After what Dent did police, and the next day,
to himself, I was next every news show and
in line to fill the paper screamed the story
vacancy. But they gave about my fraud and
it to someone else. embezzlement, and how
Old Deegan knew, somehow, the noble bankers
that I had taken were dedicated to
a few work computers fighting corruption.
home and sold them to He needed a scapegoat.
pay off my girl’s doctor I gave him what he
bills that insurance needed and lost it all.
wouldn’t cover. He called
me on the carpet,
and assured me that he
would have mercy on
me and my family,
if I just confessed.
So I did. But he turned
me over to the
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/ernie-coffin

129. Lafayette Lincoln Jones
When I first became a lawyer, it of all the luminaries
was to help defend the poor of the city. The
and vulnerable rest of my career was a plummet,
from injustice and exploitation. away from the centers of
But the more successful you power, until at
get, the further you last I was back with the poor, where I
get from the people who are needy. started. And how I despised
So I found I'd become a them and their weakness.
highly-paid legal
gunslinger, who changed sides on every
issue he used to hold fast
to. Which may explain
how I stumbled so badly when I
defended the arsonists
who torched the City
Council building. Kyle Kerns ripped my
case apart. He shredded my
reputation, and
all but destroyed my manhood, in front
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/lafayette-lincoln-jones

130. Professor Newcomb
Evolution must have selected
in favor of religious
belief, otherwise why would it be
in every single human
society? I tried to unlock
the secrets of why that was,
but I only alienated
both sides of the argument.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/professor-newcomb

131. Broderick Deegan
It’s true, my reckless speculation
led to the collapse of
my father’s bank. But it’s not as if
he did not know I was
doing it or that he didn’t give
me some of his money
to secretly invest so he did
not pay taxes on it.
And it’s also true that I lived in
a penthouse in Buenos
Aires while that Schultz fellow served time
for my crimes. And yet, guilt
has a way of compounding interest
more ruthlessly than my
father ever dreamed of. Which is how
I found myself leaping
in front of an express train, to end
a misery that I'd
not even noticed had eroded
my desire to live.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/broderick-deegan

132. Mo Nickle
Some folks thinking that it would be
just have bad luck. I was The One.
always The One where they valued
the best worker at what- me and
ever repaid my loyalty.
job I had. So I was I thought
always the Galleria job
the first one laid off. They would be
said I a new beginning too.
was indispensable, Instead
until it was a final end.
they dispensed with me. And
always
just when I was due for
a raise
or a promotion. And
stupid
me, I went into each
new job
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/22/mo-nickle

133. CharlaNoxon
I killed him. He didn’t insignificant and
like that I wouldn’t poor simply vanish.
choose him, preferring a
boy who didn’t have And then I got sick. So
his money. So he hit I went back to the
me, and I shot him city, and turned myself
dead. But his daddy paid, in. My short time left
so his friends in the was worth spending to watch
media lied and said them wriggle in the light.
it was an tragic
accident. The money
that must’ve changed hands.
I escaped home to Spoon
River and hid. But
they never came for me.
And Spoon River was
just the same. The rich and
powerful made the
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/22/charla-noxon

134. Shawn Rigby
Yes, I was high. I
won’t deny that. But
I just stopped to shut
my eyes for a bit.
I was going to
move again in a
minute, after I
caught my breath. I had
no idea the yard
I was on belonged
to the Mayor. I
wasn’t bothering
no one. She didn’t
need to scream like that.
And her bodyguard
didn’t need to shoot.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/22/shawn-rigby

135. Marc Lyon
I did love her. a witness in
But I could not a federal
get away. I case that would keep
thought if I was me sequestered
cruel, she would leave for a whole year.
me first. But her She cried and cried,
capacity but told me that
to absorb hurt she would pray for
seemed limitless. the day I would
I lied, I found come back to her.
reasons to stay She knew I would,
away as much long before I
as I could. I knew. She owned me.
manufactured So I gave in,
emergencies, stopped trying to
catastrophes, run. She was by
and crises that my side, grasping
kept me from home. my wrists, when I
Once, I told her finally died.
I needed to
testify as
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/marc-lyon

136. Tanya Lyon
He could not even But I built my
look me in the life with him, and I
eye while he told that was not about
ridiculous to throw it away
story about his just because he
“Federal case.” was too weak and scared
But I pretended to keep going.
to believe it.
I knew the truth, all
of his lies. The
business travel. The
overnight trips
into the city
that just happened
to put him there the
same time as that
harlot Sophia
Garzan. I was
fooled by none of it.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/tanya-lyon

137. Samuel McGreuder
I was prosperous and
respected by all in the town. All
except my youngest son.
He loved me, yes. But he always thought
he knew better than me.
I tried teaching him but he would not
listen. When at last he
got control of the business I spent
my lifetime building, it
was wrecked in less than three years. But by
then, I was too weak to
stop him anymore. Do not get old.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/samuel-mcgreuder

138. Matthias O’Meara
I was always told that I was
destined for greatness, for
an important role. But all I
achieved was a lofty
title and some small influence
in a town full of small
minds. Married to a wife of cruel
judgment. When I became
old, my successors bought the rounds
and begged for stories of
how it was in the grand old days.
I obliged, even though
those days were never real. They thought
me great. I knew the truth.
I should have done better. I should
have done more. What a waste.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/matthias-omeara

139. Martha Stennis
My Christophe, he was on
disability most of
the time and spent his days
on the corner talking
what was wrong with the world.
So I had to support us
with my cleaning. The maid
sees all the secrets people
try to keep. The cleanest
hero leaves behind dirt, grime
and prints, and nothing can
ever be cleaned completely.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/martha-stennis

140. Christophe Stennis
The guys on the corner used to laugh
at me when I looked both ways
before crossing the one-way street. I
told them that you can never
know when some fool’s gonna decide they’re
more important than the rules.
So, of course, the one time I didn’t
look the opposite way would
be the day that that drunk decided
he needed to make a left.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/christophe-stennis

141. Eric Ward
Rather than this to ensure their
headstone, they should security.
name the thruway
interchange for But things we do
me. It was my in the name of
vote in the State security
Senate that cleared often destroy
the way for the exactly what
seizure of the they are meant to
land and the forced protect. And so
removals of my children grew
the families up timorous,
that lived on it. not daring to
And even though speak their minds in
it never got public for fear
out to the news, of ridicule
somehow they all and pillory.
knew that I’d been
paid off for my I did it so
vote. I did it they’d live better
to provide for than me. Instead,
my family, I poisoned them.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/eric-ward

142. Marci Ward
I lived in a rich, after I moved
fancy house that far away to start
became a prison a new life, I
of unspoken always feared people
recriminations. could see my shame.
In college I So I tried to stay
was engaged to James, unobtrusive.
who was only I succeeded, since
with me because my I died alone.
family name
could help further his
aspirations.
When he found out the
truth of what we
really were, he dropped
me with a cruel
efficiency. No
one would touch me
afterwards. Even
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/26/marci-ward

143. Dawn McCain
My mom used to
send me the newspaper
clippings that tracked
all my exploits. Which red
carpet I’d been
on. What foundation I
was supporting.
Nightclubs I would frequent.
No one living
remembers who I am.
The parties are
over. The clubs are closed.
And newspaper
clippings are as extinct
as all of those
men who used to chase me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/26/dawn-mccain

144. Commodore Jenkins
Tell me, what did Celia do with
the insurance payment? I
bought the most expensive policy
I could in case something kept
me from my sixty, seventy, and
eighty hour weeks in the
office. So much of my money went
into our insurance and
retirement funds. I always thought
I’d be there to spend it with
her. Tell me, did she use it well? Did
it make her life without me
easier? Did she think of me when
she spent it? I need to know.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/26/commodore-jenkins

145. Jake Papac
All you bleeding and our country. I’m
hearts, bleating about glad I’m gone and
freedom and choice. left you the wreckage.
You liberals, like
Ben Ridley and Some things should not
his ilk, who mocked me be tolerated.
as a backwards,
intolerant, God-
botherer. How
did you feel when, on
your watch, there were
more drug murders, more
school dropouts, more
divorce, more children
out of wedlock,
more dead babies? In
your addiction
to freedom, you have
destroyed our home
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/27/jake-papac

146. Wally Cleveland
Everybody knew
about the novel I was writing.
But after a while,
people stopped asking about it. My
bits about finding
a spare hour to write before work,
or during lunch, or
after everyone had gone to sleep,
were all wearing thin.
The truth was, it was easier to
talk about the work
than it was to actually do
the work. I never
finished it. I barely even started.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/27/wally-cleveland

147. Felix Amaris
I may not have been justifications to
a lawyer, like Matty stay at the table.
O’Meara, Kyle Once you see through the veil,
Kerns or Lafayette Jones. you have two choices.
But I know how they Stick in the game and do
must have felt. I was a your best, or bail out
professional card and curse the deception.
player, blackjack mostly. But to see the truth,
Blackjack, like the law, not accept it, and keep
is said to be governed playing is the sure
by rules, but y’all know route to a broken heart.
that the house always wins.
No matter what name
that house goes by. In both
worlds, elaborate
mythologies direct
behavior: luck, hot
streaks, equanimity,
fair play. These are the
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/27/felix-amaris

148. Archibald Carlin
I thought I didn’t have a prayer with in the kitchen, when she
a jury that had Dutch started screaming “Rape!” Dick ran in with
Wallis as its foreman. What happened a gun pointed at me,
was, we lived next door to and I fled. Sheriff Reade was at my
the Bandlers. And Dick Bandler and I door an hour later.
frequently had disputes
about our property lines, and how Throughout the ordeal – the press and the
one of my trees over- trials and being kept
hung his property. And Sheila and apart – Sheila always believed my
Lila Bandler didn’t version of the story
get along either after some row over their lies. Thankfully, the State
over where the school bus Appellate court did too.
should stop. But one day I decided
that we needed to make
a better attempt at neighborly
friendship. I went over
to compromise and try for a fresh
start. Lila answered the
door and invited me in. We were
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/archibald-carlin

149. Lawrence Viola
There’s always a crossroads where “might- make my own success.
have-been” and “was” will So I picked one direction at
intersect. Mine was when I was my crossroads, and I
twenty-five. I had poisoned Aunt Rochelle. It was not
a business plan. A fiancée. hard. The coroner
But no money, and said it was a heart attack. I
few ways to get enough. But I got her money. I
did have a rich Aunt married Penny. My business was
Rochelle. She kept teasing me with a wild success.
“maybe” and “perhaps” Nobody ever caught me and
when I asked for an investment. I never looked back.
But she never said
“Yes.” She spent her time moving her
money back and forth,
plotting to make a quarter–cent
here, a half-cent there,
and losing money on fees. All
while lecturing me
about Ayn Rand, and how I should
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/lawrence-viola

150. Denzel Butler
You know the saying “youth
is wasted on the young?”
Well, I say that life is
wasted on the living.
Say yes to everything.
Regret nothing. Never
apologize. Just live.
Any agony is
infinitely better
than the cold blandness of
the void. I know you don’t
believe me. But you will.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/denzel-butler

151. Ryan Bernhard
I could care less
about what is written on the
stone above me.
My true epitaph is in the
minds and hearts of
the people I touched while alive.
Their thoughts of me,
their remembrances, are what’s real.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/ryan-bernhard

152. Cameron Dick
Before the repertory truth. There is a
movie house was more profound reality
shut down, I would go every in artifice.
week. People thought
all those old films were cheesy.
But at some point,
we all see we live in a
melodrama.
Who hasn’t been swept off their
feet, or gotten
deliriously crazy
in love; gutted
by betrayal, or sworn to
get revenge? By
the end of my life, movies
had become too
real, pedestrian, mundane.
As if simple
reportage was closer to
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/cameron-dick

153. Frederick Waldo
I made a bid for Governor, me, sweeping him to
and I ran on a the Governor’s mansion. In the
platform of change. And I denounced deal, I was given
my opponent in a plush post in the Comptroller’s
the primary as a tool of office. The people
corporate interests. who followed got nothing but
I inspired the young, who flocked a bitter lesson.
to my campaign like
never before, and they carried
me very near to
victory. But I lost in the
primary, and then
the party leaned on me. So I
convinced all my young
followers that our erstwhile
that used to be our
demonic oppressor was now
our only hope
for real change. And they listened to
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/frederick-waldo

154. Von Tice
I raced cars I lost control
and my life went completely
the same way. and was crushed to
I started out death in the
strong, flashy, crash. My races
with great promise all ended
and heady way too early.
expectations.
But somewhere
in the middle
I lost it, drifted off course,
and flamed out well
before the
finish. The one
time I felt
I was about
to push through
and finally
win a race,
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/von-tice

155. Julio Verne
I loved gadgets. I
had to always have
the newest, latest.
But they started to
come out faster and
faster, and I’d move
on to the next one
before I even
finished with the last.
At the end of my
life, I found myself
circled with machines
that had been barely
used, discarded too
soon, capable of
doing so much more.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/julio-verne

156. Titus Mansfield
Be careful, because Goldhamer asked me, “how do you know
you never know where your nemesis that change won’t make it
will come from. And it worse?” That question plagued me always.
won’t be the person who hates you, but And
the friend who says, while everything I tried
arguing with you, that thing that will to do, every campaign I worked for,
reverberate in every candidate
your head forever. After college I worked for, every choice I made, I
I traveled the world. heard Simon’s voice and
I saw the great and awful sights of hesitated. And hesitation
a planet rife with can kill. My life was
many ways of living. I came back unalterably changed, and not for
to America the better, because
determined to better my home, to of a stray comment over a beer.
help fulfill our
destiny as the greatest nation
in the world. But it
was over a beer one night, that my
old school friend Simon
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/titus-mansfield

157. Muhammad Yusuf
I loved Spoon River more than most
who were born here. I
gave more to Spoon River than most
who took from her. As
the children of great families
fled as soon as they
could, I brought more and more of my
family here. And
while the entrenched factions bickered
and warred over their
petty disagreements, I stayed
quiet, respected everyone.
Because soon, they will all be gone.
And it will be my
children who will become the great
family of this
town. Don’t worry, we will care for
it better than you.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/03/muhammad-yusuf

158. Robin Parker
I gave my life in my youthful defenders
service, to my town, my may have targeted
state, my country. And the weak and traitorous,
each breath I spoke was to like Doug Linke, with a
defend the rights of bit too much zeal, I went
liberty, property, to my deathbed with
and the rule of law nothing but love for my
and order. I was loved country and pride in
and respected, and my service. As I put
I moved in the highest down my burden, I
circles. I brokered know I’ll be rewarded
agreements between the above, even as
mighty. When I spoke, my opponents will burn.
thousands listened. And in
spite of scurrilous
charges that some in the
Democrat party
tried to smear me with, and
even though some of
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/03/robin-parker

159. Arlan Macy
What do they teach you institutions
in those awful, that have colonized
disillusioning, your mind, you’d reel
distemper mills with horror at what’s
they call schools? Have you become of this
even read the land. I didn’t fight
Declaration of for our freedom
Independence? so you lot could give
The Constitution? it all away.
Do you know of
anything that went
down here before
you came bleating, blind
into this world?
If you could somehow
learn the dying
art of thinking for
yourself, if you
could break free of the
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/arlan-macy

160. Michael Malankov
You do me wrong. You all blame I had no help, they were able
me for failing to stop the land to use a trick of the rules
seizure bill from passing. You to call a vote while I was gone.
judge me as a weakling, as a So blame me all you want. But
coward, for not saving you you ask too much of your leaders.
from the greedy developers,
who twisted the law for their
own gain. But where were you? I sat
in the legislature for
twenty years. And each convention,
each close race, each battle, you
always found some reason not to
vote, not to use your voice, some
excuse to not participate.
You all relied on me to
defend you, and didn’t bother
to learn what that meant. So yes,
I needed to use the Men’s room
during that long debate. Since
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/michael-malankov

161. Mya Alabama
Anything’s the town, a handsome young man
possible. I drove into struck up a
Spoon River conversation with me. It
with five dollars to my name, was Henry
and my car Winter, son of old Thomas
broke down near McNeely Hill. Winter who
As I trudged owned the house. This chance meeting
past the expensive estates, set off a
feverish chain of events, and many
with hunger, I stumbled in years later,
front of the all of the Winters were gone,
Winter mansion. It seemed to and that huge
glow and pulse mansion belonged only to
with electricity. It me. I think
called to me. the house knew,
But I was barred by a gate, well before
and no one any of its occupants.
answered the bell. Later, when
I got to
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/mya-alabama

162. WilfredoMonserrat
For long years, I was all that stood
in between the Spoon River Public
Library and the Puritans
who wanted to eject the books they
thought were “offensive” or “obscene”
or “inappropriate” for children.
As if keeping their children from
reading or hearing about the dark
isn’t precisely the thing that
makes them run headlong towards it. I am
gone now. Nobody is left to
stop you. So have your purge. If you would
bother to read some of those books,
you’d find out what you’re going to reap.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/wilfredo-monserrat

163. Elias Camden
It wasn’t much of sold the land. It was part
a house, but it was ours. of the site where they
I never missed a built the Galleria.
payment, was never late. My Kate was going
But they passed a law, to have a job there, but
and Thom Ballard told me it never opened.
he had the right to They could have let us stay
evict me. The famous in our house for all
O’Meara took on the difference that it made.
my case for free, on some
principle. He fought
as hard as he could. But
the law was the law,
and I follow it. So
we accepted the
relocation money
and we rented an
apartment on the south
side of town. Ballard
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/elias-camden

164. Leonettis the Zoologist
When you spend long enough around the was unable to stay faithful to
animals, her. Why I
you see how much like humans they are. needed the scent of the hunt. We are
Or to be more precise, how humans only a step away from the beasts.
resemble The name of
animals. Animals run in packs. that step is Rationalization.
All bow down before the alpha and
the lone wolf
is the weakest, easiest to kill.
We have such a variety of
reasons, of
explanations, of excuses. For
why Ballard could steal Camden’s land, or
why Mayor
Garrity kept getting elected
even though everyone hated her.
Or why no
matter how much I loved my wife, I
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/leonettis-the-zoologist

165. Davy Rice
I wrote the Deaths
column in the
Inquirer.
The obits I
wrote there, you should
believe no more
than what you read
on the front page.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/davy-rice

166. Landon Ambrose
There is a magical When I got out eight years
moment just before a snow, later, there was a gleaming
where it seems like sound can’t new cathedral to good
travel more than a few feet. government where we killed the
It’s on nights like that, that old one. I heard there’s a
I did my best work. With the bust of the Old Man in the
alarm disabled, it lobby. Don’t know for sure.
was nothing to get inside. I never set foot inside.
The fires were all set
precisely, the misleading
evidence put in just
the right spots. It was only
because that damn cop was
walking around outside, where
he shouldn’t have been, that
we got nabbed. The building burned
down anyway. The job
got done. And we took the fall.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/landon-ambrose

167. Harvey Canyon
I was the type of guy
who fell in love with the
waitress. With the girl in
the office down the hall.
I loved passionately,
hundreds of them, thousands.
But it was all in my
imagination. Was
this my tragedy or
my triumph? I can’t tell.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/harvey-canyon

168. Graham Carrol
When I was in my teens,
there was a line of trees As an adult, I found
along a road near my myself repeatedly
house. In front of them were trying to recreate
rows of low bushes. You my crèche, but never could
could sit in between and recapture that sense of
feel like you were lost in safety, of solitude.
a primeval forest.
I’m sure that it was the One day, I came home to
product of the hard work visit my parents. And
of some municipal saw my sanctuary
landscaping worker. But had been ripped out to make
to me, it was like a room for a tract mansion.
secret world, completely I never came back to
severed from the earthly Spoon River after that
plane. I would hide there, spend day, until I came here
hours on end, with my
walkman, a filched bag of
chips, and a book or three.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/graham-carrol

169. Rey Cristobal
After the of course. Garrity, Sheaffer, even
City Council building burned, it was Don Howard.
me who worked That building was my conception, my
tirelessly to raise funds for its monument,
replacement. my whole life, cast in steel and in stone.
To get all the divergent factions But my name?
to agree My name is nowhere to be found there.
on an architect, a site plan, and
a vision.
When I unveiled the models, people
swooned and cheered
and said I was building a temple
to justice.
At the last minute, who swept in with
his gnarled claws?
In the rotunda, there’s a portrait.
Enshrined in
oils, The Titans of Spoon River.
Deegan first,
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/rey-cristobal

170. Clem Dax
Every group of I saw him
fellas has playing the runt
a runt. For some to those guys
reason, it at the garage,
was always me. trying to
I always weasel his way
had to drive, or to a job.
pick up the I s’pose we’re
leftovers, or all someone’s
clean up the runt, and someone
mess. Every group else’s King.
of fellas
has a King o’
the Mountain,
too. I lived in
fear of a
bad word or look
from Jimbo.
Until that day
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/clem-dax

171. Columbus Lesley
After years climbing the ladder, controlling the remnants
I split from my friends when of the bankrupt Deegan Group. I
I saw they had betrayed what I was supposed to collect
thought we’d stood for. I tried my checks, keep quiet and grow old.
to build a new party with the But I made that office
other disaffected. into my weapon of revenge.
But the bar to entry was too And I lived out my days
high, and we failed. So I denying that money to all
bent my new apparatus to who wanted a piece of
capture positions of it. The older I grew, the more
power in my old party. And
I was successful for they despised me, and the
a time, until the deals I cut more they were forced to listen to
and the crimes I covered what I wanted. Their hate
up were exposed. My followers became my only sustenance,
pushed me out, and took the and it kept me alive
reins for themselves. As a payoff well into my ninth decade, much
to keep me quiet, they to their consternation.
made me a member of the board
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/columbus-lesley

172. Will Calhoun
Twenty-six years,
I was a municipal
judge. And all I
wanted was one more term. But
they dropped me from
the ticket and went with some
new, young fellow.
I became possessed with rage
and bitterness,
so much that I gave myself
a stroke. My last
years of life were spent almost
speechless, confined
to my chair. But I never
lost my hatred.
I shaped my sons to be my
instruments of
vengeance. From what I could see
before I was
taken, I was successful.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/will-calhoun

173. Billy Calhoun Junior
I never even
liked the law. But my father
molded me to send his
payback to those who
wronged him. So my life was spent
settling scores that were
decades old. His hate for
a small group blossomed into
my hatred for the world.
All I trusted was
money, and what I could buy
with it. And even though
he died when I was
still young, I felt the shadow
of his chair and heard the
grinding of his teeth
right up to my own deathbed.
I can still hear them now.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/billy-calhoun-junior

174. Marcellus Wayde
You know that Springsteen song, where the guy to the ramp, when a pickup truck ran
goes out one night and the stop light and smashed
ditches his family? I never into the Chevy. The collision
understood how a was awful. I called
person could do that, just throw their life 911. When the police arrived,
away. Until the I told them what had
bank collapse wiped me out, I lost my happened. They took my statement and asked
job, and my daughter me to stay in town
was born with autism. The bills were so they could follow up if needed.
insurmountable, I testified in
my home was a minefield, my wife cringed court. The pickup driver got sent to
at the sight of me. jail for manslaughter.
And so one night, instead of turning But I never got on the Thruway
right towards home, I went When the police let
straight. I don’t think I had a plan, but me go, I went straight home. That night, and
I found myself at every night after.
the on-ramp to the Thruway. The light
turned green. The Chevy
in front of me began to turn. I
put my foot on the
gas pedal and turned on my signal
to follow him on http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/marcellus-wayde

175. Andre Mark
I was at the Y you can only from the inside by
one day. This was live in one of them. my secrets like
uncommon. I was In one, you can Clarence Brusso? I
there with a friend, have all that you could was not the most
using his guest pass. ever want in peaceful man, but I
There was a fat, a lifetime. In the never let rage
old man – he looked old other, you get take over my life,
to me then, with to be right. The trick like Sheriff Reade.
my unseasoned eyes. is, knowing which And I used all kinds
And he said, with apartment is which.” of drugs, but I
no provocation, With that, the old never lost myself
that he had learned man waddled away. to them like so
the meaning of life, I never saw many, many of
and would we like him again, but not my neighbors. I
to hear it? My friend a month went by could have been any
was in a rush, after, that I did of them, I think,
trying to keep to not think on what if I’d never heard
a schedule, he said. I think that (what I later
so he did not stay is why, even told to my kids as)
to listen. But with a life full of The Parable
something about the tragedies and Of The Apartments.
wrinkles in his loss and hardship, I I wonder who
forehead kept me there. didn’t succumb I’d have been, if I’d
“So then, what is to bitterness like never heard it?
your secret?” I asked. Llew Underwood.
“There are these two And after a life
apartments,” he said, far from honest,
“across the hall how I avoided
from each other. And being eaten http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/andre-mark

176. Hector Dillon
When I was growing up the next time you want to
here, everyone who had crush a dream, think of me,
influence over me, shut your mouth and listen.
everyone who had a
hand in my care, told me
that my music was a
dead end, a waste of time.
You all wanted me to
quit and do something “real.”
But I persevered, and
became a success. I
touched more people than you
can imagine. Now this
grave is regularly
visited by people
who listened. And you are
forced to spend your time on
the upkeep of my tomb.
That makes me happy. So,
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/hector-dillon

177. Sam Bourgoyne
Somehow, I
knew what was going on. Long before
I saw him
sneaking away from the side of the
house after
climbing out her window. She had this
faraway
smile. I swore I’d kill him, but I
never did
try. Then I bumped into him on the
street. I saw
the terror in his eyes, and tremors
in his hands
as he pulled out the gun. I yelled at
him to wait
but he shot me in the chest. I died
in his arms
while he wept. I don’t know if she did.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/sam-bourgoyne

178. Mrs. Alyssa Bourgoyne
I tried to
send him away, but his I stayed mute
passion left me speechless. But I knew in prison, and only
it couldn’t spoke when it was a necessity,
end any other way and then just
but badly. I never wanted him the absolute least that
to kill Sam. I could. I knew when I became sick,
But when the Judge sentenced but I kept
me, I found that I could not speak in it to myself, and I
my defense. went to my end without a complaint.
No words would come. I was
thirty-five, and Edd was twenty, so
they blamed me.
And perhaps I believed
them and sentenced myself to silence.
Or maybe
I felt nothing I could
say would set things right, so why bother?
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/mrs.-alyssa-bourgoyne

179. Edd Nash
Fourteen years life I had left
for murder, I in service.
served. The first And a decade
three were a Hell later, they
of my own decided I
making. But at had earned my
some point, I release. I spent
learned that if I every day
didn’t find after making
a way to live good on their
with it, I’d belief in me.
kill myself well
before I
got through year four.
So I read
the Bible each
day, and I
committed to
spending what
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/edd-nash

180. Stewartt the Coder
Every interaction can be
broken down
into code. Every
code has a structure, a syntax.
That syntax
disassembled, will
reveal an even finer-grained
structure. Now
disassemble that
code again. Lather, rinse, repeat,
past even
the subatomic
level - you’ll still have infinite
depths to plumb.
God’s a programmer,
the greatest hacker ever. And
we are his
most elegant code.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/stewartt-the-coder

181. Gavin Anders
Please, tell me who won.
I gave my last bit of
strength campaigning for
the Governor. And they
said he won at first.
But then it was too close
to call. And there were
lawsuits and rulings and
appeals. I tried to
hang on, to see him claim
his rightful triumph.
But my body didn’t
listen to what my
head was telling it. Did
he win it? Did he
restore our prestige and
pride? What happened? What
happened? No one will say.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/gavin-anders

182. Herman Saint
We were saving up to
leave Spoon River. Leave
America. As a
nation we are doomed,
destined for collapse, and
will be lucky to
survive a handful of
decades more without
tearing ourselves apart.
So we were leaving.
But I got sick, a rare
form of cancer. Then
Jeane got a flu that would
not pass. We spent our
savings on doctors. No
matter. We both died
within the year. Get out,
while you’re still able.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/herman-saint

183. Maud Drake
I always said been meant to be that
I didn’t want to I would get that
have children. Who infection, too. That
would want to bring life I would die. That
into such an my son would die with
awful world as ours? me, before he
But somehow I could experience
was persuaded, by the world at all.
my friends and my Don’t look for meaning.
family and things
I read, that I
was supposed to want
a baby. So
when I got pregnant
by accident,
I decided it
was meant to be.
But if that was true,
then it must have
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/maud-drake

184. Filomena Liston
Why do we remain here? To bear
witness? To what end, if
no one will listen to us? The
living barely slow to
see each other, much less stop to
remember we who are
gone. What are you afraid of? What
might you hear that turns your
world to ashes? No, don’t stop. Don’t
listen. Keep going. Live.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/filomena-liston

185. Octavio Bradford
The smell of fresh coffee. The
taste of an apple. The feel of
a hot shower. The sound of
the ocean. The sun in her eyes.
These are the things that I mourn.
These are the things that bring me peace.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/octavio-bradford

186. Reverend Mappleton
My fellow clergy all served God,
and Spoon River, the best they knew how.
But I could not help but wish that
they had done more listening and less
talking. They fancied themselves as
shepherds. But the Lord does not want sheep.
He wants us to be whales, full of
power, beauty and grace, a pod that
spans the world, singing a song of
Love. Whales have no shepherds. Just hunters.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/reverend-mappleton

187. Kiernan Cale
When I was a junior in
high school, we went
to the state finals, and I
scored the winning
touchdown. Every moment of
my life after
was less than the one that came
before. Fifty
years more. Nothing was ever
better than that
day. How I wish that it had
never happened.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/14/kiernan-cale

188. Mohamed Williams
Spoon River was just a place
like any other one. We had
heroes and villains and the
righteous and the wicked and the
boring and the normal and
the bizarre. I was probably
all of those at some point. None
of these chattering ghosts would have
been any different had they lived
their little lives anywhere else.
We all carry the seeds of
our own destruction inside us.
And God only sends us the
crosses that he knows we can’t bear.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/14/mohamed-williams

189. Mackenzie Tobias
When I was a boy, I thought that my
parents were gods and knew
everything. When I was older I
thought they knew nothing. As
an adult, I would speak and hear their
words coming out of my mouth.
I had children, and watched them go through
the same cycle from the
other side. Then came the day when my
son spoke, and it was with
my voice, and the voice of my father,
and of my grandmother.
And the voice of my daughter was mine,
and my mother’s, and her
grandfather’s. Resonating. None of
us are our own people.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/14/mackenzie-tobias

190. Armand Stone
I was married five times.
And every time the
divorce was ugly. I
was repeatedly
betrayed, used, and taken
advantage of. Each
time, I thought the new one
was the answer to
my unhappiness. Each
of them ended in
misery. But the truth
is, fulfillment is
dull, and I just got bored
too easily. How
I wish it wasn’t so.
I had five chances
for happiness and I
sabotaged them all.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/armand-stone

191. OudryTumelo
The factions went to
war, and thousands upon
thousands died, my wife
and daughters included.
I escaped. And I
settled in Spoon River.
Factions war here, too.
Mostly with words and not
bullets or fire.
Mostly. But words are first,
and they poison the
mind and the soul. No hand
has ever pulled a
trigger or set a blaze
without the control
of a mind awash in
words. My days in Spoon
River were peaceful. But
the conflagration
will come here soon enough.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/oudry-tumelo

192. Josh Almeida
Every great man
needs voices to speak for him.
My voice was one
of the best, strongest, and most
persuasive. So
it was purchased to speak for
Deegan. By his
word, I spoke for the boards of
a dozen firms.
I thought I had given my
children a life
without the anxious whispers
of want. But then
came the crash, and suddenly
my staggering
voice was silenced. No surprise
that throat cancer
took me, twenty months later.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/josh-almeida

193. Arvin Knoble
I was just about
to graduate. There was
a big parade in
town. And Josh Almeida
gave a speech about
honor and sacrifice
and defending the
flag, and we all cheered and
cheered, and suddenly
I knew I had to join
up. Two years later,
as I was bleeding my
life out into a
swamp, all I could hear were
his words, as loud as
the day I’d first heard them.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/arvin-knoble

194. Lionel Lindburgh
Vinnie Knoble would have
despised me if he’d come home alive.
And I probably would
have returned the favor. But those grunts
never understood we
were fighting for them. To keep them from
wasting their lives in a
pointless war. What did I get for my
sacrifice? One of his
brothers shot me on my home soil.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/lionel-lindburgh

195. Second Platoon
The truth of the matter
is, we argued, we laughed, we
seethed, we cried, we complained
we were bored, we were crazy,
we killed and then we died.
We died for you. We were you.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/second-platoon

196. Allistair Finch
When Becca and I, and the first wave
of settlers came to
Spoon River, there was nothing but trees.
We built the first town.
We endured the winters, the famine,
the terror of strange
folk in the woods. All the long years have
passed, and our children,
they judged us. Saying we were brutal.
Savage. Bringers of
plague and genocide. But they never
had to struggle for
survival. All they knew was money.
What is money? Some
unreal marker of debt. Of control.
How stupid to die
for an idea. Our money was food.
Fire. Warmth. When you’ve
faced a world that is trying to kill
you at every turn,
only then, do you have permission
to judge my choices.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/allistair-finch

197. Emilio Gaines
My whole life, I strove. I
sweat. I labored. To know.
To understand. But what
can knowledge tell you that
a cool rain can’t? And what
possible answer could
you find to the question
of the eternal stars?
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/emilio-gaines

198. Becca Finch
One winter, the plague
took my Allistair
away, and left me
crippled. But I lived
a long time after.
To watch the town and
country we built grow,
expand, and reach heights
that we never could
have dreamed. Oh, my love.
Do not be angry
with our children. We
built them a world and
they have made it their
own, just as we made
ours in Spoon River.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/becca-finch

199. Mena Weisse
He was a rich, the sea, on merchant ships
spoiled boy when he first and whalers and
met me, and it anything with a sail
infuriated him that would put the
so, how I would world between himself and
challenge his every word. me. And out of
As if by dint these journeys, he made his
of his family he fame. I was the
should always know only one who could read
what was right. And though I my name written
never let him in the spaces between
see the truth of me, I his lines. Do not
think he knew that seek to avoid pain, since
I loved him desperately. agony is
But his head and the try-works of beauty.
heart could not be spliced, and
so he left. It
was me he was fleeing,
when he took to
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/mena-weisse

200. Gyorg Kiel
Those last few weeks, I that movie. “What
raced to finish does it matter what
writing my memoirs you say about
before wasting people?” Over and
away completely. over, every night.
But every night When I woke, my pen
in the hospice, I was stilled. Every
had the same dream. day, I wrote less and
I was writing on less. It was still
parchment, which was unfinished the day
really my skin. With I did not wake.
a fountain pen,
that I kept dipping
in an inkwell,
that was also a
canal like in
Venice. And I’d hear
Dietrich say that
line from the end of
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/gyorg-kiel

201. Donna Sageth
I was brought up to
believe that if something
was wrong, if something
was upsetting you, if
something was hurting
you, then you should not keep
quiet about it.
Repression, I was told,
only makes things worse.
Except, in the real world,
nobody wants to
hear it, nobody wants
to help, nobody
truly cares. And all you
end up with is an
advertisement for your
weakness, and other
people’s pity or scorn.
Thin-skinned, I failed at
becoming a stoic.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/donna-sageth

202. Dinah Elden
They laughed at us when are in the dark now.
we said we loved each But I know he will
other more than two be with us soon. I
had ever loved in know. I know. I know.
the history of
the world, and we would
never be apart.
And after we found
out, we knew they would
never let us be
together, never
give us any peace.
We lit the candles,
played the music and
swallowed the pills. So
the three of us could
be reborn as one,
together, safe. We
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/dinah-elden

203. Sweborg, the Coroner
Every case that came in got put him first.
a number. The prisons always sent me
The month, the day, the year. Then bodies at the end of the
last name and first initial, month, like they
on those days rushed to fill up their quota.
that we got more than one. That
system worked fine, the thirty I wonder what they saw when
years I ran they put my
the place. But then they put it name in there. Where did I rank?
all on the computer, and
you couldn’t
find anything. But it was
curious to see the new
patterns that
came clear in the mess. All the
Winters died in the springtime.
And Christian
Deegan died on New Year’s Day,
so the computer always
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/sweborg,-the-coroner

204. Salvatore Valentin
He worked in the office next to mine
and he was a shirker. If there
were the quickest, sloppiest way of
doing inspections, of filling
out the forms, he would do it. And it
made me furious that he got
such a plum, without any notion
of the many sacrifices
I made to reach an equal station.
I came from a family of
sweatshop workers and town hoodlums. To
hold a job in civil service,
an appointment, with a salary
and a guarantee of food in
the winter, these were lofty heights to
reach in my world. My triumph was
his prison. I did my job better
than was expected. And all I
received was the odd extra biscuit,
while he gained immortality.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/salvatore-valentin

205. Mordechai Torrey
I took over the department store
picture-taking franchise.
It had been losing money for years,
as the new cameras gave
people the tools to do the job for
themselves. But families still
came to me, drawn by the rituals
that they remembered their
own parents dragging them to. And I
would take portraits of their
babies and toddlers, and wonder what
world these children would live
in when they made it to adulthood.
(If they made it – I did
a surprising amount of business
in funeral reprints.)
What world would these children inherit?
Would I recognize it?
Would they even be human? Would I
be a caveman to them?
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/mordechai-torrey

206. Remington Paisley
He would not have been remembered, if for the major journals. Soon,
it weren’t for me. His books there was a flowering revival.
had mostly been forgotten, but they But was he grateful? Did he
came back into vogue near the thank me? He just squinted at me with
end of his life. And why do you think irritation, as if I
that was? In the short time when distracted him from important things.
he was famous, I was a boy in But what is more important
the village and heard stories than legacy? Would he have his, had
of how he used to teach in Sunday I not been his champion?
school and take long walks wearing Did he think he did it all alone?
a queer-looking hat, or how he would Was my value so paltry?
prattle on to the matrons
about Solomon or Suleiman
or syphilis. Later, when
I had grown and reached a place of small
influence in the world of
letters, I dug out his forgotten
stories, added them to my
syllabus, and wrote some few pieces
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/remington-paisley

207. Lyla Banks
Ninety-three years. I made. My dearest
A near century. children of dust,
Who was I when life is short and long.
I met Dom, decades You did what you
and decades past, could. Leave it now. Rest.
in another world?
Seventy years
together. Children
born and passed on,
grandchildren saved and
slipped away, great-
grandchildren to start
the cycle once
more. Every sight you
can imagine,
I saw it. Every
emotion you
could feel, I burned with.
Every mistake,
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/lyla-banks

208. Dominick Banks
In almost a full century,
I had the world and
the cosmos explained to me in
dozens of ways. The
meaning of God thrust upon me
from thousands who sought
my voice for themselves. The fabric
of the universe
shredded, re-stitched, shredded again.
But God was always
with me. Sitting right next to me,
in Lyla’s smile.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/dominick-banks

209. Jamil Cleave
I devoted my
life to justice and I
failed. So damn all your
remembrances and shrines
to an image of
me. Curse me instead, for
falling before the
forces of repression.
Curse me, and carry
on the fight. When you praise
me, you only damn
yourselves, set back the cause
and abdicate your
responsibilities.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/jamil-cleave

210. Elizabeth Nickle
My father loved baseball, but more than
that he loved old stories
about baseball. He loved telling me
bedtime tales of the feats,
misdeeds and malaprops of all those
legends. But the one thing
he told me that always stayed with me
was that famous saying
of Satchel Paige about not looking
back, because something might
be gaining on you. My Dad taught me
to play, and I loved it.
But more, he and Satchel taught me how
to live, a lesson I
never forgot. I didn’t slow down
until I stopped for good.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/elizabeth-nickle

211. Jacob Bryson
My children, I am failures instead of your
sorry I am not there own. Be the master
to see what you will of your own state of mind.
become. But I know you
will do well. And if
you only remember
one thing for me, let
it be this: that no one
else has the power
to make you do, or feel,
anything that you
don’t want to, unless you
give them that power.
If I would have learned that
lesson earlier,
I might have been there to
see you have your own
children. Hopefully, you
can learn it through my
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/jacob-bryson

212. Linus Ballard
Everyone is the
hero of their own story,
their life an epic.
But they’re also the villain
of the tale. And they
play all their own supporting
roles. Other people
are merely standing in for
aspects of themselves.
Or maybe I’m the only one
who thought that way. And
maybe I was the only
one to be alone
at the end of their story.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/linus-ballard

213. Rosalinda Wyatt
Those who make the laws are the most in
need of being ruled
over. Those who enforce the laws are
the most likely to
break them. The ones who play at power
are the deluded
ones. Those of us they derided as
common, stupid or
hopeless, were building the only world
that truly mattered.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/rosalinda-wyatt

214. Kylie Templeton Udzinger
In my lifetime, I
saw superstition replaced with hard
science. You’d think that would be a
good thing, but you’d be
wrong. They just replaced unquestioning
reliance on the church with a
reflexive worship
of science. But was the New England
Journal of Medicine any
less remote than the
Vatican. Both were sold stories of
how the world worked, and both turned a
profit from belief.
I trusted my own anecdotal
evidence instead, with a dose
of charitable
skepticism towards all, including
myself. And it served me just fine.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/kylie-templeton-udzinger

215. Paulie “Perch” Rucker
We come from the ocean, relying only on
and we build shoals in herself. And Mellor the
the wide, waterless world. comedian, a
Deegan, the Orca, with Grouper with a giant
his wake of pilot mouth he never could close.
fish feeding off of him.
And Robin Parker, a The porpoise Moreland,
Barracuda of too playful for his own
cunning temperament, locked good, caught in the stinging
in combat with gallant Swordfish nettles of Donald
Kyle Kerns, always Howard, the Jellyfish.
brandishing his weapon And you. Are you a shark
before him. Can you see or a mere prawn?
Gio Moss the Crab, A giant squid or just
scuttling away from plankton to be gobbled
his latest meal, looking up by the others?
for another shell But we all fear the great
to climb into? Efa, Fisherman, who snags us
a sad-eyed Catfish who up in his nets and
can see all the muck carries us to our doom.
and misery that skim
the bottom? Tysha, an
Amazon Molly, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/paulie-“perch”-rucker

216. Dwayne Hunt
I started with Foucault, But everything crumbled
and went headlong when I faced a
into Derrida and problem that no grammar
de Saussure. Then was equipped for.
Baudrillard, Lacan and When Vita Diego
Zizek, and their challenged me to
countless vassals. Shredding use language to capture
the map, burning her orgasm.
the territory. I I tried and failed and tried
built and tore down and failed and tried.
grammars and dreamed that I
could add a last After, I came back to
piece that would bring it all the surface and
together; to breathed the cool air for the
make the world change the way first time in years.
it saw itself.
Down the rabbit hole
deep and deeper.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/dwayne-hunt

217. Jared Carson
This world is what you
make of it. I made one
full of beauty and
joy, and I travelled far
and wide to see as
much as I could. But I
always loved coming
home to Spoon River, its
peace and good nature.
And even though I saw
far-flung cities and
the wonders of this vast
planet, I’m content
my final peace is here.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/jared-carson

218. Eli Blanchard
Carson is
always going on and on about
how peaceful
Spoon River was; how good and simple.
But he was
rarely around to see how mean life
here could be.
If I could have traded places with
him, I would
never have come back. Now I’m stuck here,
listening
to him forever. Reminding me
I never
did leave this place. And now never can.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/eli-blanchard

219. Vita Diego
I got bored of that was good for
the academy more than monographs,
and their endless conferences, or
circle-jerks. I quit drunken, flirtatious
and became an arguments. A
acupuncturist. metaphor that healed.
All my former That touched. Garden
friends were aghast at overwhelms machine.
my fall into
new-age quackery.
But they could not
understand what I
saw – a system
of metaphor that
captured our whole
cosmos, from atom
to universe.
And a metaphor
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/vita-diego

220. Dirk True
As a student, to myself, the
I was good at shortest distance
geometry. between two points
It was ordered, is never a
had rules, made sense. straight, direct line.
People are non-
Euclidean,
and axioms
did not hold. So
I abandoned
the path they all
thought I belonged
on and struck out
on my own. A
disappointment
to many, but
leaving that world
was worth it. I
proved, if only
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/dirk-true

221. Donavon Bode
I belonged to no party.
Each side had their
points. Each time the contest came
due, I wavered
and waffled and tried to make
the most right choice.
They all made sense at times. They
all were crazy
too. I always had trouble.
And more than once,
I went in the voting booth
and closed my eyes.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/donavon-bode

222. Beryl Clovis
They’ll try to beat it
out of you. Through logic,
and ridicule, and
if necessary, fists.
But never forget
that you are right, and
this world is more than
what your eyes see. Even
the churches want to
pin you down, by giving
God a backstory.
God is a mystery
and it will never
be solved. Hallelujah.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/beryl-clovis

223. Sylvester Rowan
God must be dead. Because it is said
that we are made in
his image. And we die. And our deaths
are the things that give
our lives purpose. That is what they say.
So, if it’s true, it
stands to reason that God, creator
of all, to fill his
Creation with meaning, would have to
perish, would have to
leave it behind. If not, then what does
any of it mean?
God must be dead. If not, then he’s a
fraud and a coward.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/sylvester-rowan

224. Kenan Connor
They always said I it was true. It took
was slow. And they said that me a while, but I learned
Doctor Centrone was to stop saying it,
my real father, because because folks would get that
I looked like him, but look in their eyes that
he said he wasn’t. And meant they were gonna get
even though I was serious. When I
slow, people were nice to got sick, I could talk to
me and gave me things lots of other things,
to do to help out. I like flowers and grass and
was good at taking soil. And then I
care of their animals, saw folks who had died when
so I walked a lot I was small, and they
of dogs and fed a lot told me to not be scared.
of cats and fish, and So I wasn’t. I
one time I even got came here and talked to the
to feed a turtle. grass and the trees and
But nobody believed the dirt to tell them I’d
me that I could hear be there soon, and they
what the animals were were happy to see me.
saying, and could talk
back to them, and that’s why
I was so good at http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/kenan-connor

225. SorenKiteway
I was the last of
three. Born late. An accident
and an afterthought.
So I learned to survive with
less. Love, attention,
consideration. But my
siblings both grew to
squander my parent’s love and
support and money.
Whereas I, who got nothing
but the freedom that
comes from being ignored, grew
strong and made myself
a life. Expectation kills.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/soren-kiteway

226. The Skeptic-Believer
My town was your ability to change.
full of people who worshipped The world continues to revolve,
fire gods and revenants and even if
things that went you don’t, can’t, won’t validate
bump in the night. And it had every microscopic piece of
people who decried Faith as a it. If you
delusion try to check each possible
and an invitation to outcome, every permutation,
bamboozlement. But having Faith you will lose
is much more your mind and your self. So the
important that believing only rational answer is
in a deity, nor does it Faith. Faith that
require the planet will still be there
believing in anything tomorrow. Faith that she loves you.
supernatural. Faith is a Faith that things
practical, you do have meaning to some
rational position. Faith one, even if you can’t see it.
is the opposite of Control,
and it’s a I hated
crucial survival skill in God. My Faith was the bedrock
a world where so many things are of my life and my happiness.
outside of
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/the-skeptic-believer

227. Hugo Bryton
I wanted, and
I needed, so I prayed
to God. But God
didn’t care. I fell ill
and cursed God. He
still didn’t care. Then I
found love, and thought
I’d make my peace with God.
Again, silence.
So I forgot about God,
and in doing
so, I think I may have
found him. I’m not
sure. But that’s fine with me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/hugo-bryton

228. Arnold Edson
After eighty years, this
world was nothing I
could recognize. We might
have been colonized
by Martians; that’s how strange
these people, these so-
called children of mine, have
become. I could not
understand how they lived
the way they did, thought
the way they thought. Maybe
I had become the
alien. Either way,
I was ready to
go. I was ready four
years before I went
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/arnold-edson

229. Idris Earle
I was an ardent a fact that we held –
Democrat, and backed you still hold – power
the ticket, fought for to destroy all life
it. But I broke with on this planet. And
my liberal friends those kinds of genies
on one issue that never go home to
perplexed them. I would their bottle. So it
not back down on funds is imperative
for exploring space. that we send people
I know the money to other planets.
could have been used for
education, to To ensure that our
fight poverty, to species survives. My
ease suffering. And time has passed, and so
I know there was waste has my danger. But
that stuffed the pockets make time for yourselves,
of oligarchs and and for your children,
scammers and weapons on Earth or elsewhere.
dealers. But it is
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/idris-earle

230. Noreene Andersen
I had sight. I didn’t want
it. I tried to hide from it, turn
it off, block it out. But I
saw. I saw when people lied. When
they cheated, when they had fooled
even themselves. I could still see.
And I had to say what I
saw. The most transparent lies were
my own. So I was hated
and shunned. For being honest. The
truth is I loved you all, and
I’m sorry I couldn’t keep from
telling you what you didn’t
want to hear. I envied your peace.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/noreene-andersen

231. Joseph Dawn
I loved my wife, but I didn’t believe
cheated on her my story, and since the
constantly. Every job woman wouldn’t
I had, there’d be help me, I looked like a
an office lover. The liar and a
business trip trysts. pedophile. And I
Secret lunchtime meetings. knew that my wife
The last time, it would take that easier
was behind a line of than my cheating.
bushes down the I confessed, went to jail.
block from the office. As
we finished, a But my wife stayed
police car stopped in front with me. And when I got
of us. She ran out, I never
away and left me to strayed again. I thought of
fend for myself. it constantly,
I didn’t even know but I didn’t acted
there was a pre- on it. Never.
school across the street. They
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/joseph-dawn

232. Denice Fulton
I went to church every
week. Sometimes twice a week.
And I marveled at why
others didn’t. It was
so beautiful and so
serene. Majestic. It
didn’t matter which church,
synagogue, temple, mosque.
I loved them all. Such joy
was there for all, for free!
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/denice-fulton

233. Mac Littleton
Do not fear,
enemies of the Lord, when your time
comes. He is
not a God of vengeance. And He knows,
as I do,
that when you come to join us, your way
will be made
open by those you loved, those who came
before you.
They are here now, whispering in His
ear. Like I
whisper in yours. Do not fear. You are
loved. You are
saved. This is the Kingdom of Heaven
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/mac-littleton

234. Vidal Adolphus
After long days in
the lab, making cultures, splitting
cells, cross-breeding strains,
we’d often decamp to Mendel’s,
to drink and argue
and flirt and fight. Sometime, after
a few too many
rye whiskies, I’d imagine a
Great Geneticist
looking down on us, pairing us
up to see what our
DNA would yield, culling dead-
ends, optimizing,
improving, diversifying,
strengthening. It’s the
chief goal of life to make more life.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/vidal-adolphus

235. Yancy Melbourne
I stumbled through the
world of light, shrouded in darkness. But
now that I’m buried
in the dark, I see nothing but light.
Surrounding, filling,
connecting us all. I wish I’d had
an inkling. Perhaps
I wouldn’t have been so terrified.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/5/yancy-melbourne

236. Mitchell Maddox
At the end of my days, I found
that I loved my dearest
enemies. At least I knew them,
even if it was to
despise them. But the new world is
so different, so strange. So
my old adversaries became
my last compatriots.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/5/mitchell-maddox

237. Captain Achilles Pavalides
Don’t venerate me, or my
service. I joined for a payoff of
money and strength, but none of us got
much of either. Except for
the permission to take lives. I killed
who they told me to, when they told me
to. I died the same way. A
tool, broken and discarded. Glory
and honor can’t embrace you, but the
cold dirt can. We go to war,
each of us for our own reason. And
we all died for somebody else’s.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/5/captain-achilles-pavalides

238. Kenji Shaito
My life was music.
And though I will never
make more, what I did
create is still in the
world. Not a lot of
it, not heard by many.
But it is there, while
I am gone. And as long
as that is the case,
there is the chance someone
will hear it fresh. So
I can still live, until
the last recordings
degrade, and the final
person who heard them
passes into nothing.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/kenji-shaito

239. Layne Cornell
On Sundays, when my
family went to church, I
went instead to the
library. That was where the
angels sang to me.
And my worship was most
devout. I miss my
books so much. I try to tell
myself the stories.
What I can recall of them.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/layne-cornell

240. Tobin Burgess
While I was wasting
away, I spent days sitting
in the garden. It
was the early spring. The trees
were just beginning
to bud, waking from their long
winter’s sleep. Starting
over. I didn’t think it
was possible to
envy plants. I did. I do.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/tobin-burgess

241. Levar Conway
The old don’t speak to told to the young me, what I
the young. They blame the young learned through all my long
for being different, revolutions. They might
strange, frightening. Or they not have listened to
speak at the young, with me. They may not have heard.
regard for listening But some of them did.
only to their own Even if only one.
words, mistaking their worn
proverbs for wisdom.
But I spoke to them. And
I listened to them.
Their fears, Their hopes. Their
schemes
and cosmologies.
And I told them that their
elders were just as
lost, just as confused as
they were. And to trust
themselves. I told them the
things I wished had been
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/levar-conway

242. Geoff Cage
Tobin Burgess is
muttering his
wish to be a plant.
But he’s looking
in the wrong place. We
are all water,
droplets in a huge
river. Each one
a speck in the great
torrent. And in
the end, the river
returns us all
to the fathomless
ocean from where
we began. Or we
evaporate
and ascend to the
cloudy heavens.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/geoff-cage

243. Sebastian Parrish
I lay on my deathbed, waiting for
God or his angels to come.
I’m still waiting. I’ll wait forever.
I know they will come for me.
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/sebastian-parrish

244. George Dillon Davidson
One day, when I was ten, held in thrall to their patronage.
I was playing baseball
with Miguel Elliott, and we All three of us have passed
saw a strange movement and now. All three might be called
light high up in the air. wastes, failures, or disappointments.
Miguel swore it was the Angel Did any of us leave
Gabriel, giving a behind a mark on the
trumpet concert. I told world, on our shared Spoon River home?
him it was a UFO, and A life cut short, squandered.
spun him a story of A callow legacy
aliens coming to of corruption. Unfinished tales,
earth, escaping cruel masters, and read by few, remembered
befriending a pair of by fewer. All of us
Earth boys who they would take falling short. All of us failing.
on an adventure. Just then, Rod
Deegan went past, and heard The Gods of the Vikings
what we were saying. He all knew they were doomed, that
chastised us that it was just a there was nothing they could do to
weather balloon, and we avert their fate. What they
were wasting our time, and taught their Norsemen was to
we should grow up now and get jobs. fight for as long and as fiercely
as they could before they
Miguel met his Angel succumbed to death. And death
after he slipped, and he spared no one, even deities.
never got to grow up. I spent
a lifetime running, and I did what I did. I
hiding from Rod Deegan struggled hard as I could.
and his fellows. But every road Now we’re all gone. Now we’re all here.
I took led back to their
clutches, and my life was
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/george-dillon-davidson

A Secret Code in Syllabic Prose
While the stories appear to be poems, they are in fact written in a structured syllabic prose, with each piece conforming to a different
structure. The choice of structures contain coded information. A hint can be found in the first entry, “I, Metadata,” the only one to not be the
voice of a person relating his or her own experience.
The might remain to tell your stories
holographic memory stores or
The text is an acrostic. When the entry is deciphered, it reveals en- damn your enemies. To confess
the phrase, “The count of syllables modulo twenty six.” un-
ciphered throughout our brains; our We, love of your family or warn
our of
Modulo 26 is a cipher-text scheme, where the numbers 0 through 25 Us, our I; the thing we whisper
correspond to the letters A through Z, and the number wrap around night- those fatal mistakes. To pronounce
time pleas and stories to. The hub wise
and start over, so 26 means A, 27 means B, etc. This substitution
edicts and foolish rules. And some
scheme can continue indefinitely, so A could also be represented by of nights,
572, 676, or 1196. feeling and of knowing and of there’d be me there, listening for
you.
self.
If you follow the clue’s instructions, and count the syllables in You could have (sort of) eternal Spoon River’s legacy is here,
“I, Metadata,” it reveals a repeating pattern of 1 syllable per line, life, in
let it be imaged in software xerox-constructed epitaphs
followed by 8 syllables per line. 1-8, or 18. 18 modulo 26 yields the
and
letter “S.” built into your grave site. You’d be
long
expired, but your encoded
Soul

The Count of Syllables, Modulo 26
Using the key-phrase to deconstruct each of the individual entries yields a new letter. The second entry is below, for Lukasz Harding. It is
written with a syllable pattern of 6-7, or 67, yielding the letter “P.”
I’m buried right next to
Jim Waring, the stockbroker.
There are two reinforcements built-in to the structure to help guide the
I remember he made
codebreaker along the right track. The first is that the initial ten letters a mint in the dot com boom,
in the sequence spell out the words “Spoon River.” The second is a went bankrupt, and somehow
ended up even richer
correspondence between the name of the entry and the syllable pattern.
than before, while I lost
Lukasz Harding has 6 letters in his first name and 7 in his last, mirroring everything I had and more.
the syllable pattern. “I, Metadata” contains a one-letter word and an 8-letter
Seeing how the wealthy
word, matching the 1-8 structure. This pattern holds true for every entry,
just took what they felt they could
acting as a shortcut once the code is identified, and also clarifying places get away with, I went
where different pronunciations could yield different syllable counts. and robbed a mini-mart store
and accidentally
shot the clerk at the counter.
He was an immigrant,
a father of four and I
killed him. I plead guilty
and got death row, where five years
later they gave me a
lethal injection. Now I
lie next to Jim. Seems our
two roads led to the same place.

Spelling It Out
There are 244 individual entries in the story. By deciphering each one and translating into letters, the following phrase is revealed:
Spoon River native Simon Leigh Goldhamer spent many years trying to produce a
television series based on the events in his hometown. He wrote many treatments
and scripts but the show, which he called “Spoon River Confidential,” was never
produced. Just these fragments were found among his effects.
A web search for elements in this phrase quickly reveals the site www.spoonriverconfidential.com. The site contains scanned copies of the
papers alluded to in the phrase above.
In the original Spoon River Anthology, Masters ends the story with “The Spooniad,” a fragment of an unfinished epic poem written by one of
the characters, rendering the conflict in the town in heroic terms. The story in the Spooniad has been adapted into the treatment and concept
for Goldhamer never-realized television series. The recovered artifacts give us another window into the battles that split Spoon River in two.
At the conclusion of initial publication of the Spoon River Metblog, the elements from this hidden location were published on the main site.

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

245. Spoon River Confidential
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

The Spoon River Metblog
A group blog adaptation of
“Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters
Written by Jay Bushman
Produced by The Loose-Fish Project:
Adapting classic texts to the web
Originally published in 2008
http://spoonriver.metblogs.com
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