Metal Dragonfly Minuets #1

...in the second part of my dream, I am working as a lawn-technician. It's already Autumn in Michigan (not Maryland) when I arrive to do a work-order on a property near a state park. The forest is dominated by deep greens but rogue tree-limbs have changed colors. I sense a lake beyond the woodlands abutting the property. A well-worn trail is visible, dammed by fallen-branches full of brick-red leaves. I want to clear the dead-fall along the trail and follow it to the shore...

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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…

It’s Like Warm Caramel

I cried unexpectedly when I read Kamasi Washington’s liner-notes for “Harmony of Difference”. I found the suite while browsing for “Heaven & Earth” on Amazon.com and ordered both sent to my father’s house in Holland, MI. Absconding to a chair in a blind corner, I quieted too fast and my father came looking for me,…

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…

1562 Pennies Later…

I hit a concrete column as I tried to enter a slot in the underground parking structure at Safeway grocery store. My surprise at my nonchalance did not quite overpower an ambient numbness. I hit the same spot on my bumper's edge (right-side, under the headlight) that struck the stump when I slid off the…

[A post to “Sibling Share”, copied & pasted]

Since I am having trouble opening-up, let alone writing eloquently, I decided to complain to my sister (the almost-librarian): There isn't much doubt that I have been fretful about my career since I was fifteen or sixteen, back when I could not decide if I wanted to be a biologist or a musician. Many people…

Fragmentation: Recoil-Effects…

It was as inevitable as it was unfair. My co-worker lifted me from my bed-bug infested sheets in the valleys of Amman to an air-mattress between the polished sky-scrapers of Hong Kong. She took me swimming and I toured the city, from a beautiful temple to the zoological gardens. There were fine meals and trips…