THE VIREO 

It is a puzzle how we happen here,

wrapped in a single blanket, talking low

until at last the morning light appears

uncurtained through the dirty window's blur.

Now all the talking's done and we both know.

It is a puzzle how we happened here.

The empty… Read full post »

 1969

When my mother died three years ago, there was no funeral. At age 85, she had few friends left and was the last of her siblings to go. We weren't close with our cousins, so it was just me and my brother, Brian . . . and I knew… Read full post »

Something just like the light spot you see just off center in this brain, except smaller, showed up on my friend Randy's MRI about six weeks ago. His primary doctor sent him to a neurologist. The neurologist didn't see the tumor on an MRI taken two years earlier, so it a… Read full post »

THIS IS THE LONGEST I've gone without posting since joining up last February. I'm not exactly sure what the reason is for the lapse, because it's certainly not for lack of things to write about: 

          My 20-year-old daughter, adop… Read full post »

While going through old papers, I found these words, and it seemed to me I had found real poetry. I broke the lines for sense and breath, created the stanzas, and added titles that seemed to capture the train of thought, however broken. The words are exactly as my father wrote them--includi… Read full post »

Deborah Young blogged Study in 21st Century Teenager and, having one of those myself, I could not resist . . .

Teen dyed hair pink.

Teen displays flags of Kenya and Germany (runs cross country, studies German)

Teen leaves cross country clothes on floor. Act… Read full post »

Arghhhh!

Mary Elizabeth Williams put up a post about shark poetry, Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week. I'd like to give her a big, wet kiss for putting poetry on the front page. 

She links to Poems for Shark Week at poetry. org.  I encourage you to go… Read full post »

I love Mad Men, so doing this  . . . well, it was just more fun than humans are allowed to have. I also created a demure image of myself in capri pants, having coffee with Betty, but for some reason, that image won't upload. I take that as a/… Read full post »

JLee Davis asks, "Are you happy?" I answer no, and that's the truth. But so is this.

I am floating in a little mudhole of a lake after driving across west Texas in an unairconditioned car in the middle of summer. Families are gathered on a spit of trucked-in… Read full post »

Summer, early morning, grass still wet
and webbed by spiders, I painted a house,
helping my brother lift the wooden ladder

off the truck, spill cool streams into cans.
White paint went on approximate and pure,
and as heat lines struggled of… Read full post »

It's been great having you OSers read and comment on the poems I've put up, but I'm going to take them down in the next couple of days.

The reason? In the process of getting some poems ready to send out for publication, I discovered that at least… Read full post »

When I woke up on the ground in Potomac Park and rolled over in my sleeping bag, it took me a moment to realize the lub-dub I felt was not my heart but helicopters overhead.

I’d ridden in the back of a U-Haul truck for twelve hours with 20 other/… Read full post »

It was boring, my father begins, and
It was usually snowing. He pauses,
as if he half expects it to begin storming
right there in the living room, whipping
the wreckage of letters and pictures up
into a real winter squall. Then it all
spills out--days on the train from Michigan,
his ship rolli… Read full post »

          The only problem
        with Haiku is that you just
        get started and then

          ~Roger McGough

Haiku are okay, but th… Read full post »

OTTO THE BOXER DOG collapsed in the garden yesterday and was taken to the small animal hospital, where he lived briefly, long enough for me to get there and say goodbye. He passed away peacefully in my dear friend Randy’s arms around 1:30 P.M. His age is unknown, since he/… Read full post »

Working for the Man

In March of 1993, James Perry murdered Mildred Horn, her eight-year-old quadriplegic son, and the son’s nurse. With a $2 million settlement his son had received for his injuries at stake, Horn’s ex-husband hired Perry to do the hit. Among Perry’s possessions was… Read full post »

"Sit down," you say,

"Take off your hat."

It startles me,

your mentioning a hat.

"What hat? I never wear a hat."

And yet you seem to see it,

plain as day.

What is it, this alleged hat?

Is it a Carmen Miranda… Read full post »

I've had my eye on some recent reviews of "bad mommy" books, parent memoirs that are either funny and affirming or disturbing and dangerous, depending on your point of view. I'm thinking specifically of two reviewers' columns: Rebecca Traister's The Worst Parents in the World  and… Read full post »

This is a picture of my old boyfriend’s car, a car he spent hours and hours rebuilding, sanding, painting, and fretting over instead of paying attention to me. It's a Lola T70 Spyder. Designed to go from zero to 100 in under six seconds, the T70 raced on the Can-Am sports… Read full post »

The release of Manson's prison photo rekindled interest in slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in a two-night rampage that terrorized the city of Los Angeles in August 1969. Yesterday, his last hideout, the Barker Ranch in Death Valley, burned to the ground.

Read full post »

            That part of the country is, within itself,

            as unpoetical as any spot of the earth;

            b/… Read full post »

OE Sheepdog’s meme “Two Truths and a Lie,” based on the ice breaker of  the same name, looked like great OS fun. And it was. Thank you--you dog, you! It was also a great example of you never know what’s under the surface until you scratch the surface.

I was… Read full post »

My two teenage children have ADHD, and both have been on stimulant medication from a very young age--first grade and kindergarten, respectively. So it got my attention when I saw headlines suggesting that long-term medication doesn't work and in fact stunts children's growth.

The origin of… Read full post »

Tom Pantera mentioned the lame drug education efforts of the 70s in his very worthwhile and serious post Drug Testing Less Vital Than Drug Talking.

I couldn't resist posting this absurd drug education filmstrip, enhanced with comic voice-over.

I actually remember sitting through stuff just… Read full post »