• THE SEA

    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…


  • HARBINGER

    I am slowly going blind.I may, with luck, never get thereif saying that has not already jinxed me.Going blind as you ageis rather fitting in a strange wayfor as the memory slips and peoplefade from its cornersand alcoves, when I can nolonger see them they are also gone.So if, one day, I see youand do…


  • SOME SAY

    Some say that we live our livesin ordinary time, fraught in a worldbeyond our comprehension, beyondour control, and not the ordinary timeof the church, which is now anything but ordinary as we must live it.People talk of the new normal as iffurious that abnormality can be normalizedby labeling it as such, rather than actingto return…


  • MISPLACING

    The river through the city hereis badly misplaced, not so much boringas missing something a city river should have.There are no tall buildingsstaring down at the river, no peoplegazing out of office windowswatching the shadows of their prisonsdance on the moving waters.Even in smaller cities the riversbisect its life, people noticing,peering down as they cross…


  • CATALOG

    The cat is a fastidious clerk,aware of all new items as they arriveand cataloging them as soonas they are placed in the home.Chairs in particular must beclosely inspected, tested forsleepability and comfort, and yetall seem to pass the test initiallythough some are abandonedquickly, giving way to othersthat have met the test of time.It is much…


  • LILAC

    It is the season, I remember,when the clusters of flowersrip free of their cocoons andgrasp the warming sun, spewingout their sweet fragranceto bees and people alike.They know their time is short,turn riotous in pastel shadeswhite, pink, purple, lilacthey hope we will not soon forget.It was always like that, an annualrite of beauty that we havegiven…


  • FRITTERED AWAY

    This will be a fraught year whenonly questions will aboundand answers will seek shelteraway from our endless dissection.But one question will be answeredand our fate may well hang in the balance,for this is yet another yearwhere we determine whetherthe truths are truly self-evident.For soon enough we will havea new government, whether it isa replay of…


  • DOWN UNDER

    Whenever I heard Rolf Harris sing “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport,” I had to wonder just what the kangaroo would make of that request. They aren’t the most patient of mammals and I knew few people who could hope to outrun one if it were intent on making a getaway. And I have never known…


  • TRIO

    I always wondered if the pianisthunched over his keyboard in the frontof the small club, reinventing a melodywe all thought we knew, the bassistsharing the stage providing support,stopped to note the lyrics offered upby the people in the audience as hecontinued to play, and if so, did henote them for future referenceor did he simply…


  • I HATE THIS

    I am not a person who hatestoo many things, and fewer people.I say that in my own defense, foryou have asked me to list my hates,and no one, anywhere, save perhapsthe Dalai Lama, is free of hate.so here goes my short list.I hate polluters and those who carenot at all for the world in whichwe…