Category Archives: Poetry

#237: Off Air (a Haiku Followed by Two Lengthy Postscripts)

I will go one day without Facebook, internet news. See what happens. Postscript: I wrote this poem several days ago, thinking I would post it that evening and begin the next morning as a single day without Facebook and internet news. That did not happen. I’ve been sitting on this one and I find that especially worrisome.Continue reading “#237: Off Air (a Haiku Followed by Two Lengthy Postscripts)”

#236: Media Fast, Anyone?

I cannot help it. I can’t look away. It’s a train wreck, a complete cluster, and every morning begins with the same question: What’s the outrage of the day? And now that I’m on a holiday break I’ve got something like free time to keep checking in on the downfall of my civilization. I thinkContinue reading “#236: Media Fast, Anyone?”

#235: Snowpocalypse 2016

Four days, two last week and two more this week, have been added to our holiday break, the result of some kind of snow event, the first, hardly anything to write home about, the second, enough for snow people and dangerous driving conditions. A few of my colleagues took hours to get home yesterday afternoonContinue reading “#235: Snowpocalypse 2016”

#234: On Rereading a Clean Copy of Beloved

My classroom copy is copiously marked in three or four colors of highlighter and underlined and bracketed and annotated with pen and pencil seven different ways to Sunday. I’ve read and reread and reread this novel perhaps eight or nine times now, but this time I choose a clean, elegant copy over my raggedy-ass classroom copyContinue reading “#234: On Rereading a Clean Copy of Beloved”

#233: A Meditation on Forgetting to Meditate While Meditating

(for Scott) Walking the dog, focusing on the breath, in and out, in rhythm with my step, my digital meditation bell ticking away for twenty-five minutes inside my pocket, suddenly I realize that I am missing group meditation. I have to breathe more deeply through the frustration I feel for my forgetful self, meditating and forgettingContinue reading “#233: A Meditation on Forgetting to Meditate While Meditating”

#232: The Writer Dreams of a Debilitating Incompetence

When I don’t drink my dreams are more vivid and sometimes that’s not good. Last night I dreamt I was workshopping a piece of fiction with a large group of super smart writers. I had the manuscript in front of me and I was supposed to read a section of it out loud, but IContinue reading “#232: The Writer Dreams of a Debilitating Incompetence”

#231: A Poem On My 52nd Birthday (with Glasses)

My eye sight’s all right. The only glasses I’ve ever worn were just for show, you know. But at the last check up the doctor gave me a prescription just in case I wanted to see “a little bit better.” I ordered reading glasses instead and received them just in time for my 52nd birthday.Continue reading “#231: A Poem On My 52nd Birthday (with Glasses)”

#230: A Poem of Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving, America. Here’s a skinny but long list of things for which I am grateful: It’s not January. I could do without the heavy rain making a mud bath of the lawn, but at least, the leaves are finally out of the yard. My son is healthy and, as far as I can tell, happy.Continue reading “#230: A Poem of Gratitude”

#229: Sore Loser Angry White Guy

I am a sore loser angry white guy. I’m sore, yeah, not because my candidate lost, but because THIS guy won. And I’m angry, not because the guy that won was not my candidate, but because THIS particular guy is an inarticulate, stupid, immoral, ignorant, sexist, racist, homophobic, bullying man-baby. And never before in myContinue reading “#229: Sore Loser Angry White Guy”