‘RUN-ON SENTENCE: At 47’

I am 47, the day is Jan. 2, the year is 2005, / my beard is stained white in several places, / my son is 14, my girl 10, my (borrowed neighborhood) / cat is named Mister Puzzlesocks, / my favorite red wine of the moment is / Trinchero Cabernet, my car is a white ’93 …

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Categories Essays Poems

‘Dirt & Bourbon’

My ink-stained hands hear the/ sound of the railroad, another train / passing through my town, here/ at the middle of nowhere &/ everything. I am ready to burst/ open like a cherry tomato/ between your teeth …

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Categories Poems

‘In Need of Saying’

I am on a porch, captain/ of a green ocean. Wasps patrol / the boundary lands. In whispering winds, conversing / in high tulip poplars, I hear / poems from another tongue …

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Categories Essays Poems

‘Unfamous’

I decide to be famous / only to myself. It is / so much easier and my / tender, so lightly bruised / ego now thanks me for this / demilitarized zone …

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Categories Poems Poetry

‘The Cow Bell’

A great grief saddles me,/ rides down the pampas of / Virginia Dare Avenue, / until I am too tired / and we return home / together ...

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Categories Essays

‘Mission Statement’

‘To scratch the page,/ to pick the scab, / to mix and match the phrases, / enter the lab and whip up potions, / address the sky with curses, praises, / annoy the authorities, cause commotions …’

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Categories Poems

‘Earth Mother Lullaby’

Wrinkle-skinned earth mothers from / another decade, a far more interesting decade they profess, / nest live orchids in tangled-up hair, / black-cotton gloves rising past thin wrists ...

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Categories Poems Poetry

‘Stephen’

Where have you gone, Stephen?/ Now, this night that I need you./ Need just you, the gravitas/ of your bulldog self. Your ancient/ belief in me. Rather, a belief that dates/ to 1977 or so./ Ancient enough …

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Categories Essays Poems

‘10,000 Thunderstorms’

If I'm to be an insomniac, a fine thunderstorm is a welcome thing. To entertain. To relish and divert from mournful or misbegotten thought. I ponder 
getting up. Going to my front porch, storm-sitting perch.

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Categories Poems

‘When Hay Bales Speak to You’

Let’s talk hay bales. I have, perhaps like you, been spying hay 
bales most all my life. Yet, in all that time haven’t met a hay bale. Up close. The other day, I had my chance.

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Categories Essays

‘The Flavor of Grief’

I have been getting familiar lately with the flavor of grief. It comes on me with no warning. While driving up-river, to shelter-in-Nature. At 68 mph, passing a too-slow, white Chevy truck.

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Categories Poems

‘Window No. 1’

One of my earliest, notable windows was in the basement bedroom I shared with 
brother Rick. It opened to the left, sliding open with a satisfying 'chonk!' Revealing the level grass of our backyard.

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Categories Essays Poems