• GOOD?

    She used to ask me if I had a good day.It was a loaded question for there wasno good answer in her view, it was reallyjust rhetorical, something you saidto avoid talking about your ownfeelings and emotions at any given moment.She expected me to complain about allthat did not go as planned, whereuponshe could roll…


  • SEPARATING

    We sometimes speak of continentspulling apart, land bridges severed,the route taken to get here now gone,no going back, no back to go to.The continent of my youth, myyoung adulthood is gone, recededinto the fog of fading memory, and Iam now a prisoner of sorts on thisnew continent of life, moving evermore quickly to an unavoidable…


  • IN PASSING

    I remember heras the little girl wantinga birthday pony I see a womanfinding her way in the worldalways beautiful I want to forgetthe still far too young womantaken by cancer


  • OCCASIONALLY

    I can still remember that dayin San Francisco, on Columbusjust down from City Lights Books,a young man sitting on a milk crateanother in front of him on whichhe perched an old typewriter.“A dollar buys you a poem”he said with a mix of hopeand resignation, his fingers poisedover the worn keys, their lettersfading as was his…


  • BEAUTY

    The rose no more knowsits own beautythan the chrysanthemumdoes its scent.The birds will carry the seeds,the bees will pollinate the flowersbut it is left to usto recognize the abject beautynature willingly unfoldsbefore us, it is ourEden, small momentsof perfection which weso often ignore, which weunthinkingly lay waste to,and we who must learnto mourn what we…


  • CHANGES

    Each morning after arisingI look in the mirrorI imagine everything is the same as the day beforeI imagine everything has changedf rom the day before.I do ask the mirror what itbelieves has changed, what itbelieves has stayed the same.Most days it says nothing, merelystares back at me, mocking.Occasionally the mirror will concedethat it is another…


  • COLLEGE DAYS

    All these years later he still could not fathom why he had done it. It wasn’t something he had thought about doing, but one day he just did it, showed up and got the gig on the carrier current station that reached 96% of the campus. On a good day. But he liked it and…


  • CONSOLATION PRIZE

    I do not remember the faceof the nurse who carried meaway from you the daythe door to an alien worldwas thrown open for me.Did either of you look closelyor did I become one moremoved slowly downthe obstetric conveyor.I would have liked somelink to my birth, somethingmore than the naked assurancethat it happened and thatthere was…


  • I WANT TO BELIEVE

    I want to believethat I am a man of words,to think you would agree,for words inundate my world. In my home I live among wordssome mine, mostly those of others. They follow me like a shadowat noon, the sunalways on my face. I want to know what theywant from me but theydo not answer or…


  • TO BE OR NOT TO BE

    The spider sits on the transomover the front door waiting, tryingto decide if it dares attempt entry.Others of its kind have, neverto return or to do so crippledand it knows a five or six-leggedarachnid would not be longfor the world it is trying to escape.I doubt it knows the risksthat lie within, a cat who…