Student of the Month, by 7-Eleven
During the summer between tenth and eleventh grade, I moved into my first group home after a few years of large residential centers. I had lots of headaches that year. Rather, I said I had them. I just didn’t want to go to school. Eleventh grade was my first public school since I became a ward of the state at ... Read More
Ars Poetica
You bred those hounds. Now send them loose. Your prey has a vivid pelt, though you know it’s redder on the inside. You wear a red coat, too. You’re wrapped in intent. You wait for a trail, then you’re off. Red is not a scent. Though your quarry flashes brightly through the undergrowth, the dogs follow in dog ways. Pursue ... Read More
The Challenge of the Sunrise
Watching the sunrise on the east coast is harder than watching the sunset on the west coast. Ask what’s her name. My younger brother and I camped in New Hampshire or Massachusetts at a state park in our father’s old canvas house tent that smelled like musty childhood. We had escaped a Detroit summer of factory work and ran off ... Read More
de Kooning’s Imagery of Vacancy: Plumbing the Depths of the Void The Late Paintings, de Kooning in the 80’s
We might look at Abstract Expressionism, Modern Jazz, and Free Verse not only as indigenously American cultural phenomena but also as different stylistic branches on the same creative tree. Certainly the heyday of these contemporaneous movements (from about the late 40’s to the mid-60’s) shows us a common element or spirit of expansion, of spontaneity, of some form of ambitious ... Read More
On Bukowski
Middle-aged divorced writer ladies don’t love Bukowski. We don’t love your cats. Our souls don’t mate. We assume you love
Move Him Into the Sun
He had different ways of sitting with his eyes downcast and his hands neatly on his knees. For some they
I’M NOT YOUR HERON POEM
I’m not some graceful, silent bird, its wings spread wide, its feet skimming the water in the pre-dawn fog. I’m
Roll for Initiative
A common die has 6 sides. With a pair, you can roll boxcars, snake eyes or crap out. With 3
Making Demons Run
God stays away because he’s afraid of his little creations. Any friend turned enemy has been hating since day one.
ELLIOTT COLEMAN – A Remembrance of a Poet
I became familiar with Elliott Coleman and his incredible poetry in October of 1967. I had just gotten a job
Invitation to the End
So much to treasure here and now – the smooth tea cup in my hand the conversation of
Berenice 360
The night of the Columbine shooting, Gabby made my nipple bleed. She was cranky, fighting sleep, and the jagged ridges
Writing Letters for the Blind
Once a month, on Saturday afternoons, Craig wrote letters for Bill Nelson, who was blind from untreated glaucoma. Nelson’s white
I tell Henrietta about the swans
When the need to render a beak lived inside me, I’d swing one arm around a subway pole, press the