NOTE: TODAY’S POST FOLLOWS BELOW:

Dear poetry-lovers,

          Thank you from the bottom of my heart for following my blog. Some of you have been daily readers since it began 9 years ago, some are more sporadic or more recent followers.  Thank you one and all. As you can imagine, it takes a fair amount of time to write and choose both an original poem (and select a photo to pair it with from my own work.)  Besides the blog, I spend a fair amount of time finding journals and anthologies which are looking for poems to publish and I’ve been honored to be included in hundreds of them from around the world.  If my work has moved you, made you smile or laugh or feel the depth of my writing in your hearts, then my work is all the more meaningful.
          Plain View Press published my second collection of poetry, Free of the Shadow,  this month,  It has been 16 years since I’ve taken the time to gather and organize my work into a manuscript and sent it to a publisher.  I was thrilled they accepted it and the response from people who have read early copies is beyond what I hoped for.  You can find it at B&N, independent stores and at Amazon for $17.99; check it out, if you like online HERE:

          But to thank you for being a follower, I am offering to send you a (signed, if you like) copy directly from me for $10.00, and I’ll pay shipping if you order it from me.  Just CLICK HERE.

Thank you again, my readers, whoever you are, one and all.

I did know the muffin man, yes
the one who lived on Drury Lane
but did you know he sold the bakery,
moved to Tegucigalpa and is now
maître d at a Moroccan restaurant?

And Jack Horner isn’t little
any longer, but he is serving
8 to 10 years in Dannemora
after robbing a fruit stand in Queens.

Mary gave up raising sheep
when the price for wool dropped
and she married a banker
and lives outside Atlanta.

And sadly, Jack and Jill broke up
soon after the accident, and she
entered a nunnery while Jack
flourished as a well driller
when he struck oil on his land.

First appeared in WestWard Quarterly, Winer 2025

TO MY SUBSCRIBERS/READERS

I began this daily blog on March 26, 2016. Since that date I have made over 3,300 posts (trying very hard not to be repetitive). With a new collection of poetry and short prose from Plain View Press entitled “Free of the Shadow,” now released, I will be devoting time to the book and cutting back this blog beginning on April 15 to occasional posts without a fixed schedule.