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I’m a writer, artist and designer who thinks way too much, and tries to see the beauty in the world.

Category: Uncategorized

  • impermanence

    impermanence

    I’m going to say it straight out. Somebody’s going to die tomorrow. Actually, I’m sure, lots of somebodies will die, but there’s one in particular that I’m thinking of tonight. Nothing lasts forever. Joy comes, and goes. Seasons come, and go. Grief comes and goes, too. Whole countries, entire species, blazing stars in the sky—…

  • Happy birthday, Mama

    It’s your birthday, Mama. In the picture you’re about 12 or 13, but you did headstands for as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager, I lived in fear of your doing one when a friend was over. The other mothers didn’t do things like that. I’m beginning at last to see…

  • Sharp, necessary things

    Louise Erdrich says in her poem, “Thistles”: “under loss and under hard words, under steamrollers under your heart, it doesn’t matter. They can live forever.” I think there are some feelings that are like thistles, that’s why Erdrich’s poem and the thistles along the sidewalk speak to me like an old friend as I ponder…

  • NOLA dreams

    Last year evaporated. No. Exploded, boiled over, filled to the brim and poured over the edges leaving December behind. The beauty and the un-beautiful combine combust time escapes like steam from a kettle screaming with possibilities I want to find more magic. I am digging.

  • 2017, a mini-novel

    (I’m writing a mini-novel with flash-length chapters over on Medium.com. Following is the first chapter of my tale of a dystopian future. Check out the rest if you like—it’s a work-in-progress, which I’m hoping to finish before year end. It is a work of fiction. I hope. Access the chapters by clicking here.) View at Medium.com…

  • November Ginkgo

    Walking this weekend brought to mind a poem I remembered about Ginkgos. Their “yellow fluttering fans of light” never fail to inspire me. I attempt and fail to capture them in yellow/fossil/sucked-in-breath poems. They are the last of their division of tree (Ginkgophyta), all others being long extinct. Ginkgo leaves are found in fossils dating…

  • The door is that way, Judge Ruehlman

    Dear Judge Ruehlman, I’m a registered voter and I’m not going to mince words here. I’m going to be straight with you. It’s time for you to go home, Judge. You’re drunk— drunk with judicial power, that is. Maybe it’s a side effect of how our justice system works, or doesn’t work? Maybe some counseling…

  • Dear Judge McKeon

    Dear Judge McKeon, A 40-year-old Montana father raped his 12-year-old daughter. Repeatedly. You sentenced him to 60 days, of which he will serve 43. For good measure, he must pay $80 and “future medical care for his daughter.” You mean, I think, for his victim? Forty-three days in jail for raping his 12-year-old daughter. Repeatedly.…

  • Dear Melania

    Dear Melania, Do you mind if I call you M? I don’t want to waste too many keystrokes. Never fear. I’m not going to be mean, or unfair. I’m just going to tell a story. Someday, some far-off wonderful day, you will be remembered like a princess in a fairy tale. (Yes, I think you…

  • Dear Mama

    Dear Mama, This year marks twenty-five years without you. I took this photo because this sky made me think of you, tumbling me back to a warm late-summer night when I was a college sophomore. It was the year after Dad died, and the humid air felt heavy with unheld grief. Grammy was not in…