Mercury retrograde, the solar eclipse, and taxes are due Many won’t consider or acknowledge the capacity of Mercury upgrade to color, upend human events Let the unbelievers beware – something strange is happening to cause all this drama, war and earthquakes in the land. And the eclipse – you know it’s coming next week, total darkness during broad daylight. What a mindfuck that may be. And taxes are due. No one is thinking about the power and certainty (as Marvin Gaye reminded us) of taxes, death and trouble ..read more

the special language of bees (from The Strangest Things in the World) “And your Lord revealed to the Bee: Build hives in the mountains and the trees, and in human habitations: then eat of all the produce and find with skill the spacious paths of the Lord. There issues forth from within their bodies a drink of various colors wherein there is healing for men. Verily this is a sign for those who reflect.” Holy Qur’an 16:68-69 Bees speak to one another in a supersonic spectrum that humans cannot hear. They see colors in an ultraviolet range that humans cannot see. They dance with a precision th ..read more

a surreal prose poem Karma My mother wanted a better life for her children.   She put us in all types of extra-curricular programs and got me a scholarship to fancy prep school to give me a better start. My father didn’t care for any of that stuff but much of it was useful. I broke her heart, and my own, again and again. It’s only karma that now the doctors tell me I have permanent heart failure. So I have to do a reset, change my life, my ways. I know Mama forgives me, Daddy told me so in a dream. And the doctors say I can expect to live a normal lifespan if I’m careful and remember to t ..read more

I have an ancient love affair with books. Looks like an obsession when unread tomes and well read ones fill our small apartment, tumbling off their shelves. I’ve tried telling them goodbye so many times. It’s just no use parting as I find them once again. Becoming a librarian so late in life was bound to be a heart-breaker. Never make the thing you love your job – It all ends in despair. “Can’t buy me love ..read more

a short poem about a novel I read a long time ago (without going back to check) The memories are pretty fuzzy – A history professor returns home to visit a sick, elderly uncle who taught him all about hunting and tracking wild game when he was but a boy. He has a young wife who doesn’t understand the connection between the hunt for one and the hunt for the other – a different incompatibility In seeking to make sense of it all he uncovers some old game he’d rather not have from a deep and distant, unknowable past. His wife is unsympathetic and his uncle is dying and a hidden family secret revea ..read more

I haven’t made a poem for months. Not since they cracked open my chest and realigned my heartbeat. It’s said Billy Strayhorn wrote Lush Life at 16. How did he do it? Such depth of feeling. Such maturity of thought and emotions. I learned that in the Duke Ellington group that meets virtually at the public library. In a bit of meta folklore in a different group I learned God keeps making creation until he fully makes himself. Then he starts all over again. NC State is killing Duke with three minutes to go. Still, never sleep on Duke. NC State is killing Duke with three minutes to go. Still, neve ..read more

We’re in the final quarter of regulation game. Look to your left and right – many here today Won’t be among us one year hence, gone on To their reward. We’d be well advised to make our peace now – while hearts still beat – With ourselves and others. Don’t rely on overtime – all ties go to the runner, And the runner is time itself. Each player must decide, at the appointed hour, to stay in comfort with the pain one knows, Or take the steps into eternity. Either way there are choices to be made, Preparations and promises to keep. Time flees to the final destination. Tick tock. There are no refer ..read more

Here is the part where I cry: The warmth of familial or collegial love – The heat of passionate union – the thrill of patriotic success (to borrow A line from my favorite English writer) – Scenes that make me boo-hoo like a baby. Here is the part where I cry: I don’t hide my tears from my Filomena. She won’t think any less of me if I shed a tear of two. She is a saint, my saint, The only saint I know in this life. She hear my every prayer, my supplication. There’s no emotional response I need to hide. This is the part where I cry: Big crocodile tears form and fall – Some I catch with my sleeve ..read more

Mid-September, 2023, after the first operation My post-operation dreams are all a drug-induced illusion – cross-country races I used to run back when my legs actually worked, Appointments i was always rushing to keep. But as surely as I am brushing my teeth I predict there will be a return to mobility, a regaining of manual dexterity a chance , a hope to redeem what dreams I still have, what dreams may still come. These thoughts are not the mere babbling of a now crippled man, but a demonstration, an assertion of a determined one ..read more

Folks familiar with the Peruvian modernist, Cesar Vallejo, will recognize my liberal use of the tone and structure of his poem, Black Stone on a White Stone, written under the influence, I suspect, of his observation of the Spanish Civil War. War brings out the best and the worst in all of us, in different ways, as we see nightly on the TV. There’s also a whiff of an influence from the Afro-Cuban poet, Valdez in his Despedida a Mi Madre. Both poems are worthy of your attention and both are available in English translation. My war poem (written during my hospital stay at Santa Maria) After Cesa ..read more