Poetry
My Marriage: A Haiku
Love left long ago Recently, I did the same Rebirth is timeless
Read MoreStinging, or Conversation with a Pin
Stinging me—that pin. Caressing you—this curve. Imagine me that night forgetting you this morning. Lulling me, an oversight, goodnight. Alarming you under dark, rough morning. Reminding me of pain, forgetting you for pleasure. Shaming me for denying. Accepting you not believing. Always in a rush, never out of time. Lazy busy me. Enterprising deliberate you.…
Read MoreSecond Shift Waitress
She fell into a deep sleepless dream. She dreamed she was a queen, Princess Diana before she was dead, Churchill without the soggy stogies and stale slogans, Dr. Phil, Oprah, Curtis Martin, or Einstein’s wife, if it even matters. Synapses snapping like purple lightning zapping mosquitoes on a muggy night, She continued pouring coffee, taking…
Read MoreStill Life
Our home is in need of repairs we can no longer afford. Perched atop a slippery slope on the outskirts of town, we watch the sun plunge westwards over muddy fields, while to the east we hear only the motorway’s ceaseless hum. Beyond the concrete barriers an unquiet city lies, its restlessness delineated by hypnotically…
Read MoreThe Not Knowing is Most Intimate
The dharma teacher’s wife is leaving him after forty-nine years of marriage. I think of him as you and I lay under the trees, away from the rest of the group. You ask me to identify birds. Acorn woodpecker. Rock pigeon. Red-tailed hawk. But you knew that one. My parents celebrate fifty years this month.…
Read More2020 HINDSIGHT
Year of the Iron Reporter Year of the Golden Jackass President Year of the Monkeybutt Blockbuster 3D Year of the New Virus Corona Year of the Dragon Elements Year of the Poor Meth Hooker suddenly illumined Year of the Derelict Oblivion Jones Year of my white kitten covering the world in her shedding bless-fur amen
Read MoreOut of Tickets to Ride
I squirm at that phantom hand of smoke, a clawed finger beckons toward a carnie operator, keeper of the wheel in plaid knickers, who winks, “you’re next sweetie”. He rolls the spit-soaked cigar between tobacco teeth just as intuition grabs my shoulder, a mother rescue from the path of a speeding semi, ”watch where you’re…
Read MoreThe Piano Appeared One Day
The piano appeared one day— an upright instrument laying on its side— abandoned steel and copper wires, a felled forest of resonant sounds: spruce, maple, and ash. No Good Samaritan for this curbside wreck heavy with broken ribs, a rusted silver throat open, speechless— 10,000 intricate parts sinking into the cast iron belly. Passing joggers…
Read MoreThe Cloth of Me
Driving to the airport, we talk of yesterday: Larry, our brother, up in his second-floor room behind a quarantine window, revealed between the strips of metal— real, not some wavering digital presence smiling and calling out to us “How are you?” Our voices rising above the traffic noise “We love you!! Love you!!! Keep getting…
Read More5 Tips on Self-Publishing Your Book
For book writers, the publishing process is often a fearful mystery. Self-publishing a book can intensify this mystery, because it can seem like you’re all on your own, with no clear place to start. Although I’ve managed Writers.com since 2019, it wasn’t until this past year that I learned the self-publishing process myself, while helping…
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