In the middle of a reminiscence that felt a little like a conjuring, I wanted to get outside. I wanted to walk to that part of town where the manicured lawns and red brick buildings look like an east coast college campus. I wanted to be near trees and the earthy smells of late September….
Category: Dear Diary
I Am Right Here
Sometime back in 2019 or 2020, I became acquainted with a woman living in Nashville, TN. We met on a dating app and over the course of a week or two had a few very deep conversations. We both wrote and we were both interested in psychology/spirituality – though she was professionally trained in psychology….
Content, Yet Wanting More
Saturday It’s mid morning and I have little to show for it. Worse yet, I don’t have a plan for the day. Still tired from a late night (concert followed by the bar), I woke a little before 8am to the sound of the foghorn. After breakfast, I moved to the sofa where I’ve been…
Naming Things on a Tuesday Morning
The morning sun touches everything in my apartment. I can tell the angles are different than they were a month or two ago. The autumn light makes me wish I were a better student of the seasons. Intuitively, I know and feel and sense the changes, but I want something more precise than intuition. The…
In this Climate
Dearest Martha, It is fall here in San Francisco which, for the locals, means the warmest weather of the year and rooting for, but ultimately being disappointed by, their beloved sportsball team, the Giants. The patrons at the bar that I frequent were ecstatic when one of their players hit a grand slam to win…
Moving On, Moving Out
One of my friends has moved away. Or at least I think he did. I knew it would happen at some point, but I don’t think I knew how quickly he’d be moving. He’s gone back to Australia and isn’t sure for how long. It’ll be at least a few months. He has to get…
Some Thoughts on the “Performative Male”
On a warm, sunny Friday afternoon, I went to the bookstore and to Kerouac Alley to read and to check out what I thought would be a poetry meet-up. The post on Bluesky said, “we share poems (drafts, finished, someone else’s, all words are welcome) have a beer, then go to Golden Sardine to listen…
Another Morning Walk
Hoping to recreate a bit of yesterday morning’s bliss, I went for another morning walk. I didn’t leave quite as early as yesterday because I didn’t sleep well and woke up about an hour later. I had also spent more time reading and writing before the walk, which put me in a poetic, if not…
Morning Walk
Stepping out into the cool dawn, I went for a morning walk. The air, the foghorn from the bridge, the sound of seagulls above, and experiencing the city before it was fully awake began to feel like one of the better decisions I’ve made in a while. It reminded me of when I’ve traveled to…
Morning, August 26, 2025
At 6am, the trash truck rumbles and clanks, hisses and lurches. I’ve been up since 5 when I woke from a dream in which I was arguing with a family member about why I don’t have any groceries – specifically, I was out of butter and they wanted breakfast and they were disappointed in me….
On Seeing Ben Harper, Again
By 9am I had already finished my second cup of coffee, read a few poems, and tried to write a few reasonable lines: something about a Carolina moon, the warmth of late September, drinking wine from mason jars on a wooden porch. The lines went nowhere. I read six or seven poems from my draft…
Bigness, Smallness
Ooof! Today, the contradictions within are doing a do-si-do. My square dance brain is on the wobble. I can’t get my thinking straight on anything. The monkey mind has gone berserk. In one hand it’s eating a banana. The other is flinging shit at the walls. In the cartoon version of this, I look like…