I walked across the strip of grass on the side of the repair shop cursing that I can’t seem to catch a fucking break. Really, this is how 2022 starts? Not more than three or four miles into my morning commute, the car nearly stalled out in the middle of an intersection approaching the highway….
Category: Writing
Poetry, Books, and Broccoli
I have a few hundred books. Most of them sit packed away in boxes downstairs in a room I seldom visit. I have a nice bookshelf made from a repurposed door. That’s where the unpacked books stand mostly at attention, snug and shoulder to shoulder: poetry, books on Buddhism or relationships, a few novels and…
I Like That
It’s Sunday morning slow and I like that. Down the street someone is using a leaf blower. On the sofa opposite me, the dog is breathing heavy but not quite snoring. I’m sitting by a lamp, wearing a gray winter hat that was given to me as a gift a few years ago. I’m fighting…
Seeking Mentors, Taking Steps
It feels strange to be approaching 50 (I have a few years yet) and to want a mentor or a teacher or several. It feels like I should be approaching the age of being a mentor, and yet I know so little about so many things. I’m being vague here – though not intentionally so……
New Toy: Golden Shovel
This morning I learned of a new poetic form (well, new to me) called the golden shovel. The rules are simple: take a line of poetry from someone else and make each word the last word of a line in your new poem. If the line has six words, the new poem will have six…
Details Both Blurred and Fine
I’m surrounded by mountains and haven’t hiked very much. This morning I wrote a poem based loosely on the image of the sunset and hues of purple in the sky and in the hilly silhouettes that I often see when I’m driving. For now, I feel more content to be driving through these mountains as…
Looking at a Rubber Band
On the mornings like today and earlier this week when I’ve found a groove with writing and playing with ideas and words, I don’t want to stop. I resent the need to stop, the need to pay attention to the clock, to get a shower and walk the dog and drive to work all to…
Getting Tripped Up
I haven’t written in a while. More precisely, I’ve been writing and re-writing the same thing for about a week – a micro treatise on how I get tripped up by Buddhism, relationships, and the awkward space between ambivalence and ambition; past, future, and present; action and inaction…. “the middle way.” Last weekend, my daughter…
Sorting Through the Morning Tangle
The hard work of writing, for me, is in disciplining my mind to focus on one thing and carrying that idea through to its conclusion. This is true for anything I try to do creatively, or even these silly little blog posts. I suppose practicing would help. When I get this way, I can feel…
A Saboteur Extraordinaire
A concerned citizen. That was the caption under the picture of me at the town hall. The picture that ran in the paper on Tuesday morning. The paper that William Frick read over morning coffee, pancakes, eggs and a side of sausage at the Good Town Diner out on route… I stopped writing to find…
Constant Acts of Self-Interpretation
Yesterday, my chest heavy and my head dull from the beer the night before, I moved slowly through the morning. My voice was scratchy and deep from loud-talking over the music. I met two strangers, TJ and Rachel, who are both regulars at the bar. We talked about thingsā¦ the local music scene, the cops…
Summer’s End
There’s a man on the roof of my neighbor’s house. He’s pulling up shingles and nails. To do this, he uses a tool that looks a little like a spade. He slides it under the shingles and pries them up. I can hear the scrape and thud as it slides under and then stops short…