Clifton Holt Jolley

I’m Not a Mormon, and Neither Are You

The Men of Huntsville

The men of Huntsville proper 
Found her there— 
Halfway down the Glacier’s eastward face 
With three thick feet of glacial glass 

Prophet

The common cripple to the south of Palmyra 
Dreamed God the Father, the Savior Son, 
And, though clerical tradition predetermine his doom,
Can never, never, never 
Search Kidd’s treasure again. 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: An Ornithologist’s Rod McKuen | Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Listen-up bird-lovers, Hindus, Eddy Rickenbacker, Father Schillebeechx, and Unitarians everywhere: Jonathan Livingston Seagull has arrived! Somewhat sooner and with greater flurry than many of us would have wished, perhaps, but, then, that’s his style, and…

Mr. Bojangles

Bojangles so much burdens me 
With his memory 
That I am often caught, mid syllable, 
As he stitches back the grey fields of my brain—

Three Foot Shallows Drowner

What is there but hips and thighs 
To a black dwarf? 
And the rudimentary calls and crying 
Of sparrows swinging out 

Mormons and the Beast: In Defense of the Personal Essay

Some circumstances in life lie outside the possibility of comfort. There may be philosophical arguments to support such a statement, but perhaps it will suffice to point out that the scriptures reveal a suffering God. As a matter of fact, sorrow appears to be the effect that we most frequently work on him. Indeed, our “Man of Constant Sorrows” has promised that his way of life is likely to bring a “sword” to our comfort, that his “peace” will be unlike any we might have imagined. 

Selling the Chevrolet: A Moral Exercise

This is the saddest story I have ever told. Not because The Chevrolet is gone, but because it probably is not.  This much is known. During the Christmas season of 1973, Gene and Charlotte England…

Feeding the Fox: A Parable

“Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem—for purely religious purposes, of course—to know more about iniquity than the Unregenerate.”  Rudyard Kipling, Witches of the Night When the rabbits built Hilltown, they had a special…

Maggie Smith Shoots On Over

On the morning the Challenger space shuttle exploded, Maggie shot on over.  I’ve been thinking about both events as though they were connected, even though I know they aren’t. They were separated not merely by…

Remembering the Chevrolet

Selling the Chevrolet: A Moral Exercise (vol. 16, no. 3, Fall 1983)

What Rocks Know

Handmaid

Graphene

Same-Sex Attraction

evidence of things not seen

Absent Sound

Chauvinist

The Lost Chapters of Moroni