Category Archives: Anthology

My collected writings and those of family members.

“Morning Norther”

Posted on June 17, 2018 by JMN

The wind trees up, driving a pile of mischief, rousing leaf rabble and a scramble of squirrels. Pelting rain drop-kicks the sink window pane. Water’s kettled, coffee’s ground, but it’s a storm that’s brewing. God’s baby Jesus rattle claps, His … Continue reading →

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“For Her”

Posted on June 14, 2018 by JMN

(1) You are the Pole I turn around, My needle’s North, the shade I seek On a hot day. You are the ground I grow in, stamina I lack. Remember snow that caked the “Roost”? The box of bubbly you … Continue reading →

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The Alien Parade

Posted on June 6, 2018 by JMN

The largest exoplanet ever found Is quite a marvel where marvels abound. Theory holds it cannot be, they say, But sometimes theory doesn’t have its way. It is a type of planet they call puffy That orbits its parent in … Continue reading →

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The Rev. Bidley-Spaulding

Posted on June 4, 2018 by JMN

Every other Sunday the Right Reverend Llewelyn Bidley-Spaulding motors in his classic antique Bentley from Meadowshire to Chichesterton-Upon-Hogg to visit professionally his old friend, Sir Alistair Chichester. In the 14th-century private chapel attached to Baldershanks, the baronial mansion that has … Continue reading →

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The Lady Stag Boosters…

Posted on May 31, 2018 by JMN

The Lady Stag Boosters were gonna bring the molded salads for the Stadium Fund money raiser; the Antlerette moms would do the casseroles. Mustang Mart would donate sweet tea. Things looked hunky dory until Hollie Jean Burmeister told Rose Ellen … Continue reading →

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The System

Posted on May 28, 2018 by JMN

This is the SYSTEM the FATHERS built. These are the COURTS that rule in the SYSTEM the FATHERS built. These are the JUDGES who bench the COURTS that rule in the SYSTEM the FATHERS built. This is the PREZ who … Continue reading →

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Best Wishes, Rita Dove

Posted on May 27, 2018 by JMN

Well, my mama didn’t raise a bean counter. I have better things to do — like trying to sit down and write a good poem, for example. (Rita Dove) I have high hopes for the sitting- Down part of your enterprise. … Continue reading →

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They Spy With Their Little Eye

Posted on May 25, 2018 by JMN

The exoplanet Kepler-twenty-two-B Has temperatures designed for you and me. (“What is an exoplanet?” you might say. It’s one outside our system, far away.) Pools of liquid water could exist there, So life just might be able to subsist there. … Continue reading →

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Two Testaments

Posted on May 20, 2018 by JMN

THE BOOK OF DON’T Waste not. Want not. Kill not. Lust not. Rage not. Curse not. Gawk not. Binge not. Lie not. Lay not. THE BOOK OF DO Do not. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Didactic Doggerel

Posted on May 17, 2018 by JMN

A Truly Jumbo Shrimp It’s said a jumbo shrimp’s an oxymoron. A shrimp’s a little thing you put red sauce on And gobble by the dozen boiled or fried. Some of us could eat more if we tried. Enter the … Continue reading →

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