The knob resists before giving way with a twist. The tank spits a soft hiss. The burner catches with a fist-sized fireball that rolls out and up and puffs to smoke. The second burner lights in sequence like dominoes falling. Bone-in thighs shishhh. A few flames kiss. Now, we’re cookin’ with gas.
Daily Fifty-Two: Apr. 2, 2023
All Along the Watchtower, White Men in Black Suits awaited the Season of the Witch. This wasn’t far from The Garden on Baker Street beneath The Shadow of Seattle. Nearby, a Sour Girl Fell on Black Days. In her Times of Trouble, she sang an Uptown Anthem – her private Symphony of Destruction.
Bolognese and Sacred Spaces
The best Bolognese I’ve had was at an Italian restaurant facing River Road near Trenton, NJ. I think it’s still there but maybe under new management. It’s a stand-alone building next to an auto repair shop. It is dark inside the way Italian restaurants can be dark inside. The bar is black and shiny, the…
Power Outage
Strong winds passed through and the power was out for hours. Today I have food to throw out. There’s a type of anxiety that happens when storms hit. Once the power was out, I became aware of all the things I wanted to do that required power. Sure, it’s been days/weeks since I’ve submitted poems…
Daily Fifty-Two: Apr. 1, 2023
In the spring rain puddles of April, worms parade like drunken mummers down the avenue. There’s little order to their belly crawl antics and even less hustle. Heavy boots, I try to avoid stepping on their trombone-slide bodies. I worry my eyes are slower than my feet. I’m tempted to tip-toe home.
National Poetry Month 2023
Today begins National Poetry Month. Each year, during the month of April, I try to set some poetry goals. Usually I try to write a certain number of poems (and fall short) or submit to a certain number of magazines. I don’t think I’ve set reading goals, which I might do this year – I…
Daily Fifty-Two: Mar. 31, 2023
The rain, barely visible, reminds me of pixels falling down the screen on an old 8 bit computer. In the blue screens of my youth, we wrote commands in whitish-yellow text. 10 Print “Commodore 64”; 20 GOTO 10; RUN. The program repeats and the rain cascades. I’m looking for the RUN/STOP key.
Essay Camp: Day Whatever
I’m staring at the flashing cursor and a blank screen. For all of my talk about this process by which writing elicits more writing and practice allows words to flow more easily, I still have days where that is not the case. I’ve been trying to write something about wonder and novelty. I’m also trying…
Daily Fifty-Two: Mar. 30, 2023
The morning light? I don’t want to talk about it. The robin singing? Don’t want to talk about that either. The slurping sound of the dog licking his paws… not up for discussion. The drooping plant from an ex? Completely off the table. In fact, let’s forget this whole thing ever happened.
Daily Fifty-Two: Mar. 29, 2023
The smell of wood-smoke in the frosty dawn draws my eyes to rooftop chimneys. It’s as if seeing where the smoke originates might help me breath it in more deeply. This satisfying familiarity predates my memory, feels like a calling back. Fire burning wakes the primeval, speaks to a time before time.
Daily Fifty-Two: Mar. 28, 2023
The third-floor mezzanine at the airport lounge had been turned into a concourse for the infirm and early retirees. People would be plucked out of the ground and their roots given a shake before being placed there like tiny rabbits behind white picket fences. This only happened on cloudless days, dreamless nights.
Essay Camp: Day Two
I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I’ve gotten up between 4:00 and 4:30 the last two days. Ever since the time change, I was struggling to get up at 5:05 (when my alarm goes off) or really any time before 6:00… Then something clicked, and now I’m up at 4:00-something. It might just be…