Last Saturday morning I participated in a breast cancer walk. The night before, I leafed through my poem stash to pick out a few to take with me, and it was then that I realized that a blog post on breast cancer should include my own health history. I felt uneasy about that for a few reasons. […]
MoreI found this poem last spring, just after the last forsythia bush had turned green. I had to wait a whole year for the next blooming, and then I found that the poem is absolutely right. No one does plant forsythia anymore. The forsythia I found was mostly on private property. Private property with overgrown […]
MoreThis is the story of the little poem that could. A tenacious little bugger. A week ago I put “In the Middle of the Road” by Carlos Drummon de Andrade in the middle of the road: With a stone to hold it in place: Two days later I walked back along the road and found […]
MorePoem #1: Miracles by Walt Whitman Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge […]
MoreHard to believe I’ve never left a poem at an ATM before. I rectified that situation today when I taped an excerpt from C.H. Sisson’s “Money” to a drive-through ATM. You can read the complete poem here.
MoreAddiction to an Old Mattress by Rosemary Tonks No, this is not my life, thank God … … worn out like this, and crippled by brain-fag; Obsessed first by one person, and then (Almost at once) most horribly besotted by another; These Februaries, full of draughts and cracks, They belong to the people in […]
MoreEvery Valentine’s Day I brainstorm for places that romantically-inclined or romantically-averse folks might congregate as they prepare for the holiday or prepare to avoid it. In the past I’ve left love poems in a chocolate store, post office, senior citizen’s home, a food court, a lonely-looking motel, the floral department of a grocery store. Now in my […]
MoreI set out on my cross country skis with a snippet of a Wordsworth poem. (The poem is actually set in spring—see full version below—but the opening lines seemed to belong to the wide and empty expanse of a golf course off-season.) I got my close-in shot: But when I backed off for the long shot, […]
MoreOn my way to the Ft. Lauderdale airport, I was on the lookout for a bar or nightclub to leave an excerpt from poet Duncan Forbes’ “Recension Day.” Then I got stuck in a traffic jam. And inched by a tattoo parlor. A much better spot than a bar for these lines about things […]
MoreThanksgiving, the kids come home and I rejoice because at last I can delegate again. Delegation, one of the perks of parenthood. Delegation, how the napkins get ironed, wood hauled, dishwasher emptied, onions sliced, chairs moved, table set, chaos ordered. Delegation, essential to any host whose hands are covered in butter and turkey bacteria. And a […]
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