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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PICTURE|POEM: A Dozen Ways to Look at Chicago, Illinois
I've always been intrigued by human beings whose lives are lived just below and sometimes at the level of the clouds. They surround us by the thousands, the tens of thousands. In blue rooms, staring at TVs in their skyboxes. Doing Downward Facing Dog, 2,000 feet above the sidewalk.
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POEM: “Straight Up”
Baldwin's straight Campari. Drunk in sips, at least to my untutored palette. Yet, an intoxicating and challenging encounter. A confrontation, even. And Auden, he is distilled, too. In a different, yet an equal tour-de-force.
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POEM | “My Paragraph & I”
'I want my paragraph to strut, carved cane in hand, the Left Bank, like a proper boulevardier. I want my paragraph to wow you. leave you wanting more. To, if possible, make you gasp. To make you—prose willing—cry. And then, to laugh. And then to laugh at your crying ...'
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POEM | “Body of Evidence”
'I'd no excuse not to grok the fact, or traffic in illusions of not growing old. Or denial of encroaching senescence. Or flipping the bird at Mister Death. It would halt nothing of my body's fade, of our decay. I was, perhaps, whistling past my future graveyard.'
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POEM | “Nous Celeron”
'Don’t you, Nous Céleron,/wish to lay down your arms?/Enter the Ohio’s cool darkness,/or the Chinodahichetha!/Sounding out each syllable/as a Wyandotte/might utter them .../
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POEM | The Pledge
We must imagine/a better country, after/the orange man in/the white house. Tote/our losses & our/wounds. Revelations/about our neighbor’s/secret selves. The sign,/the flag, rippling in/the wind. That says—/'Off with your head’ ….
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POEM | “Fridays”
I mark out my life in the passage of a flood of Fridays, the signposts zooming by in Friday cat posts by a favorite blogger.
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A Hundred Years of Silence
It should be recalled/most of human history/has been lived in silence.
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PORCH POEMS: ‘Ms. Nature & Mr. Death’
So, my day, which when fortunate,/begins with coffee, cat, and dawn,/shifts at some point, to the deck, for some sitting beneath the same old sky,/only this time, eyes closed./Climbed up on the shore, out of thetumultuous stream of thought./I’ve yet to grasp the meaning/of your collaboration, Ms. Nature,/with your ally, Mr. Death.
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PORCH POEMS: ‘Overhead’
‘The clouds don’t care,’/ he said. Blowing a puff / of cigar smoke at me/ from across the porch. / I sent a pretty good / smoke ring back his way./ We were not / six feet apart, so could/ be killing each other, should / the virus hitch a ride upon our exhalations ...
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OP-ED LIMERICKS: “Folly”; “Canary, Meet Coal Mine”; & “Worthless Borders”
What do you get when you mix Donald Trump with a Limerick Master—and a little bit of animation?You get Molotov Limericks. Here are the latest 3 in an ongoing collaboration.
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The Poet On My Shoulder
I have decided I don’t need a shelf of poets in my life, right now. One, two or three—will do. But who? One’s for certain. I travel with him these days, tucked into a pocket of my rucksack.
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Other People’s Poetry Break: W.H. Auden
When all the things you read sound like noise, propaganda or sales pitch come-ons (sometimes, all three at once), then it's time turn to Other People's Poetry, for a break. In this first of a series, Auden's homage to fog.
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The Christmas People Put this Hat On Me
The Christmas People put this hat on me. A bright red hat with thick white fur. And a big ball that blocks one eye. So it begins.
