Death in the Vehicular Family

“THUD! Thud thud thunk!” … with this noise, I knew it was all over: my baby of 18 years, the now legendary Nissan 2×4 “hardbody” truck the Murdochs rolled off of the Pacific Nissan lot in 1993 for $9600 cash, has bit the dust. I cannot express how sad I am that I have reached [...]

It Doesn’t Get Any Easier the Second Time Around

I just finished burying my belovéd cat Kanji beneath one of the great eucalyptus trees in the garden at Edgemont Place. I had to do this once before with the Murdoch family cat, Frodo, in 1997, after I moved him in with my first wife and our four cats Kalvin, Anastasia, Hobbes, and Atari on [...]

You Started This Blog, Now Write

I can’t count the number of times I have exhorted myself to sit down and write on this damn blog. I sit in front of wonderful technology, with multiple screens, and everything that I need literally at my fingertips, and I can’t do it. As I age, I feel myself becoming more careful, more conservative. [...]

Viral Bandwagon: 25 Random Things About Me

Here’s the backstory: currently on Facebook, it is all the rage to use your Notes application (read: blog) to write up 25 random facts about yourself, then “tag” 25 other people to make them have to do the same thing. Personally, I think that this was started by the Facebook people themselves as a way [...]

20-20

I. There was a woman Who I loved with all my heart. It’s the only way I know how to love. The problem I have With falling in love Is that I just keep falling And falling on through. It’s a perpetual autumn; Storming leaves of memories, Possibilities, Skeletal trees. And turning my collar up [...]

Clarity and Closure

“I don’t think this is working out…I don’t see any future with us.” This is how this heartbreak goes down: on the phone, during a conversation about something totally unrelated. I heard her go outside, heard her light a smoke, had been hearing all of this for the last six months, but somehow — being [...]

Neverlove

If my eyes are full of stars Forgive me, love. This swell of sinew in my heart Squeezes magic through my veins With each breath I take Thinking of you, warm and laughing. My once resolve to neverlove Is so many ashes in the seabreeze, For eager puppy I Can only long for another look [...]

Far Reaching Visions

Inside, a glowing silver sliver A secret, a blossom. Hush now, stop grinning madly. Cup it, feel it, close your eyes; Potential beading like dew On electric arms reaching. Promises made to be kept Keeping on, sparks flying, We reforge the sword With breath and sound, Far reaching vision, Laughter and love. Wave aside the [...]

Burn the Phoenix

I am thee Froggacuda And oh so froggy be I Defined by myself as myself And marooned is my current cry. Inside I’m still the same hollow Green straw puppet carnival black hole Of pool-soaked poetry pages Missing something to be whole. Cobwebbed closets rarely treaded And rusty hinges, unsafe passage Basement dwelling, life enshrining [...]

Nesting

One time I found That I loved the warmth Excavated by nesting: Burrowing so far Into a pile of pillows, A weight of blankets, The I left the world behind. These were the laps Of my imaginary mothers; They were the arms Of my dream-lovers. Safe and tight Inside a womb of covers, Tented fabric [...]

For Dawn Again

Forever I wanted to please you, Hold you and keep your eyes and halo bright. I am shy of you now; Unimaginably wretched when in your sight. I shall never love another like you. There is nothing to turn my heart away. And so this hurts the most; That I was not able to keep [...]

Forgive Yourself for Evolving

Perhaps my only true loves Are those that are inanimate, Or are animated soley by my Magical imagination. They love me like a god – I give them life, they give me Love without strings attached. They could attach their strings If they ate from that forbidden fruit That Adam and Eve partook of. But [...]

Untitled Poem #200

I love you even though We fight and fuss And make a mess Of each other. You forgive. I like that. The clouds were herded Past the pier, Nearer the horizon Than the beach; The sun water colored As I watched: The Van Gogh of Our galaxy.

Samwise

Sam has gone to the Grey Havens. Sixteen years of good loving life, defining the role of a kitten, a cat: fat, lazy and sleek, loving and caring without seeming to. My lucky black cat.

Treaty

I’ve hated myself for so long for other people other opinions, other lives: here goes my hair – look in the mirror, watch your steely blue eyes wink: lighthouses to steer ships by. Bring them home. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter, home from the hill. home to your heart. [...]

Son of the Untitled Dickwad Poem

Love is the drug that opiates me nowadays to fend through this morass of doing what’s to do. Love and Nicotine, not pen and paper, heart and dreams laid out, a mindsong to read. a cling-to-my-sanity Love, no Woodstock peace and fuck-your-neighbor crap. “She’s an Angel of the first degree…” And while I grip my [...]

Candle Flickers

a candle can move its shadows like the magic of an angel if you believe that it might be so. one word one attempted explanation and it’s war so I give up, keep my mouth shut and rot from the inside out. page after page of meaningless meaning to myself tonight to forget tomorrow to [...]

Nitrogen is to Plants as Poetry is to the Mind

I I love you most when you are sleeping and around the corner I am peeping, shadow in the box of light that falls from the living room; I hear the rain is coming soon from the whish of the wind ‘round the corner of the front porch lifting the edges of your hair while [...]

The Flavor of My Fault

Again on the wings of happiness, Again from the one I love. How much forcing, to and fro Does it take to let it go? And you’ll read this, And you’ll roll your eyes, Sigh and express your disgust At my behavior. Flavor it with examples; Our life is rife with my fault. Sometimes I [...]

Thinking About the Deed

I’m going to be married. Sometimes I think it’s soon, sometimes far away. A quick decision? The right one? Will we last? Will we continue to be happy? It all has to be waited for and seen through – there is no substitute, there is no guarantee that anyone can fully trust. Love is a [...]

For Dawn

I know I could live without you here, but it wouldn’t be something I’d choose. My bed is empty; I’m tired and lonely, my blankets worn like the soles of shoes. I miss you madly, your cotton kisses, your blushing smile, and sea-blue eyes. Only when you return to love me will I enjoy these [...]

A Poem on a Note on the Fridge

I forget the joy of writing then reading what I’ve written, curling like a kitten play-fighting with the same gentle hands that stroke poems from the sand of the beaches that I walk on when I haven’t forgotten that I love to be alone sometimes with my simple childish rhymes.

Wading Through the Cattails

I went to find my childhood buried in the morass of my memory; discarded in a moment of adolescence trying to be an adult before I knew what that was about. So me and a shovel and a dream go wading through the cattails and the frogs, looking under lilypads and scouring the undersides of [...]

What Happens Now?

when the nighttime slips across the sky like a teenage lover out his window to put flowers on his first girlfriend’s car, I’m usually surprised, even though it was I who used to climb cautiously out of my house and bicycle through quiet orange-lit streets, picking homeowner’s flowers along the way to makeshift a heartfelt [...]

I Want So Much to Believe

I want so much to believe in love that can be touched and felt: something I need to glue together all my heart. each time I fall into that trap, the sweetened chute of love, some part of me can hear the snap of metal jaws that slowly close and lock. each time I fail [...]