The coffee maker is a heavy breather. It huffs, it percolates. Its black plastic lid hat bubbles and taps before it lets out a final sigh. The dog rests his heavy head on the top of my foot. He’s bored – waiting to be fed. His breath is warm. He sighs too. I messed up…
Category: Writing
Daily Fifty-Two: Sept. 6, 2022
Tree black silhouettes haunt the morning fog. Day arrives slowly and I feel too hurried to see – my own fog, my own morning. A plane leaves the small airport just outside of town ripping the air, up and to my right. I don’t play chess, but I know when I’m in zugzwang.
Morning Jetsam
“Two waffles and a cup of coffee. that’s what I need to face the day. If I can arm myself with a decent poem or something clever or moving, all the better….” That’s what the narrator in my head was saying as I buttered my waffles and pulled the syrup from the cabinet. I hear…
Leaning In To What’s Always Been
In first grade I wrote a book. I think it was about a brown dog. In second grade I wrote another book. I don’t know what it was about. Both books were maybe 8, 12, or 20 pages in length with one or two sentences per page. They were illustrated by yours truly. The covers…
There’s a Twitter in the Atmosphere
The students are back. Everything is more crowded. I bought a new piece of original art, and I’m temporarily filled with moments of Sunday determination – the elation and motivation of which soon will pass. None of those things are related, it’s just part of the weather report, an indication of my current atmospheres…. oh,…
Writing and Love: Let the Children Play
I often feel a little off, guilty, and/or embarrassed after sharing something confessional and personal. That audience thing nags at me… I ask myself: am I ok, by which I mean comfortable, with other people knowing these things about me? Family, co-workers, friends? The answer is almost always no, I’m not comfortable with any of…
Birthday 2022
Today is my birthday. While not there yet, I’m inching closer to one of the big ones – fifty. Sometimes, my age catches me by surprise. In some respects, I still feel like a kid or like I’m stuck in this early adult phase of life (like I’m in my 20s or 30s)… Maybe it’s…
The Affair
The other morning, instead of scrolling Twitter and Facebook and reading the news – or more accurately, doing less of those things – I spent my time revising poems and researching the submission guidelines of a few journals. I still didn’t hit submit, but this was a step. I have continued to add to my…
Becoming Disequipped
At some point in the day, almost every day, I sit at my computer and think I should write a poem. Except it never works that way. I suppose “never” is an exaggeration…. it just seems like if I sit down with the intention of writing a poem, I sit there and stare. One writer/teacher…
The View from Out Here
Being sick got the best of me these past few days. On Sunday, I wrote that I should do some chores and send some poems out for publication. I managed to find the dead mouse, throw some things away, and run the vacuum. By the time I was done, I was in a cold sweat…
Unsettled and Under the Weather
Today’s post (Saturday morning) is brought to you by the letters u, g, g, g, h, h, and the number 45 – as in for a solid 45 minutes, I was paralyzed with indecision and feeling a whole lot of uggghh. For starters, I’m feeling a little sick. It’s that scratchy throat, stuffy nose, something…