“If You Can Do Anything Else”

I started writing yet another reflective essay about how I'm not writing the way I wish I were writing. I decided a free verse poem would be more compact -- thus, this column of thought.

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Beyond Recovery: Dunes and Dragonflies

If recovering from discombobulation is like swimming from the depths of the sea to a beach, then daring to become "more" might be like climbing a dune! I discovered that my mother is a rip-current and my father is a beach-umbrella -- and neither is what matters most. After playing with insect metaphors TOO MUCH I decided that dragonflies are a better example of transformation than butterflies. Moreover, I can sense that I'm reaching another inflection point in my development and I want to share my insights with everyone.

Anchors Away?

"Is that the church of 'Popeye The Sailor Man'?" asked my musician friend. "It is, now," I replied, winking. I stopped wearing it when I returned to Michigan from Maryland, placing it on a 'reef' of polished stones. My efforts to settle in the Washington area faltered; I’d obviously reached the point of contemplating my path anew. I didn’t want to continue displaying the anchor without understanding what it means to me now.

The Crock-pot’s Soul

It was brittle with heat and had preexisting cracks. Several shards had darkened edges from the seep of long-forgotten meals. My mind sprinted between memories of better times in my DC apartment, times when I felt capable and loved; I supported myself in a space of my own. I had specific career and romantic prospects, the outlines of a definite trajectory for what “should” happen. All was smashed.

Halloween Day: My Truck, My Tablet, and a Pink House

I called truck #212221 'Desirae'. Google tells me this is a French name for "the one desired". I found a poster of Ray Lewis propped against a pump-canister in the back of the flat-faced Isuzu my manager assigned to me: perhaps a desire but even more a discovery. "I'll call you 'Rae-Rae'-- short for Desirae."…

Halloween Day: The Costumed Clerk and a Plastic Trumpet

On Halloween Day I departed from the IHOP in Olney, MD in a daze. To lessen the likelihood of mowing-down trick-or-treaters with our fleet of half-blind utility trucks, our assigned work orders were lighter that day. I had spent the morning disguised as a lawn technician, and employed as one this past Autumn, but never shed…

Write to Live: Musician’s Intuition

I want to unpack this notion of "writing to live", presently. It cannot be a hollow, "just do it", reductionist-species of motivational phrase. This fresh axiom also needs separated from another, superficially-similar suggestion to "write like your life depends upon it." These two sentences come from different poetics. To write as if my entire life…