Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

Poetry Chapbook

Rainy Day Gloom

Rainy gloom dashes the world heavy

paints the early morning

sadder, sadder, sadder still

Trims the optimistic pedals of spring

and makes me think

today is not the day to climb new mountains and proclaim myself

the master of all the eye can see

But after the rain

the mud on the heels of my soul

dries quick

and with a kick

turns clean enough

to try again to climb

mountains and proclaim with all the air of new spring,

fresh full-throated

"Let no rainy-day gloom defeat me!"

The Trick is the Thing

If poetry be a con

then think of me not in three-year-old sweatshirts

and three-day unwashed pants

but rather a three-card Monte player of words

silk suit and top hat, a feather won

When next I trick you into whiling away the excess coinage

of the day with words that twist

simple truths into fiendish intents

to take the banality of the day and make meaning through word-play

Remember: 'tis only a trick...but when day's air grows stale

the trick is the thing

Idle Tuesday (a poem)

To be alive on a Tuesday,

Smooth writing pen,

Coffee stains smear,

There are no tears for yesterday on stubborn, half-empty paper

Clouds portend much trouble, still

In the inhuman intentions of a spring afternoon

I find reasons to make deals with angels

For devilish tricks

Such machinations of the mind

That Tuesdays will forever be off-limits

To pen-wielding malcontents

With too much time on their hands.

3:30, Sunday

Days are like leaves in the wind

Possibilities, natural urges and more

The natural urges of 3:30 on Sunday

Tell me that

Moments are not to be trifled with

Like the hearts of young girls with stubborn pride

Longing for love affairs both bold and fair

To be rushed into the strong arms of a 20th-century man

With more audacity than impulse control

Making 3:30 on a Sunday seem like some sacred text of a monastery

Too high for a 20th century man to reach

While carrying prideful girls of 3:29 in his arms

Float

A soda float

Vanilla ice cream

Dr. Pepper

My day tastes a sweetness

That may last beyond this tongue-tied connoisseur

Of things that bubble and float

Like dreams of summers

Under Miami skies

Chasing lightning bugs, dreams

Of free floating

memories

They float.

Sweat as ice cream and Dr. Pepper

Simple comforts and sweetness

Still

That make me float.

The Nagasaki Coast

The charms of brown sand

and jagged rocks

too old to brave jelly-fished water with wrinkled flesh

the waning sun makes me long

for the charming sounds of lapping waves

of the romantic aspiration

of youth

a time when Fitzgerald and Hemingway were both in vogue and tutors

to a restless soul

The coffee grinds of youth

settle to the bottom of an aged spirit

make bitter aftertastes seem romantic

like novelists

who retired into a blissful rest

on the Nagasaki coast

Summer

The green of summer is greener still

Bogged down with minor tasks

A summer sun invites me to mischief

And more

Than summer dream can ever fathom

Still green leads me from one hot adventure

To another

Until summer days cool

Into an epic fall

Paradise in the Cloud

Paradise in the cloud

Bliss is thy name

Scars cannot be healed

By cool weather eves

Lazy cats on high

Concrete

Young minds attuned

To recent sorrows

Small comforts in classrooms

With views of the bay

We are but the things that dream are made of

Skin, fog, dust, clouds

Germs too (please mask up!)

I wish to be a bird, a butterfly, a wallflower

Only to reappear in this paradise in the clouds