Tomorrow morning this girl from the north country heads off for a long overdue vacation down south to the Nashville skyline. Maybe Memphis too. We'll see how that all plays out… Read full post »

Like many cat owners … wait a second. You can never own a cat. Let me start over.

Like many feline servants, my day usually starts with feeding our three cats. One extremely cold morning last month, the middle child of our three-cat family, Pippin, was missing. Without… Read full post »

“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”

- T.S. Eliot   The Waste Land

Sylvia didn’t catch the screen door quickly enough. It slammed behind her, startling the robin pluckin… Read full post »

The title of this post reads like words overheard on the Buffalo evening news station, "Random shots were fired ..."

My random shots refer to a few photographs taken over the last couple of weeks in anticipation of Spring. With a lagging winter and a case of cabin fever any… Read full post »

Not being overly domestic by nature there are a number of nooks, crannies, corners and closets that require my attention for Spring cleaning. One way or another, each one requires a mandatory trip down memory lane.

My daughter’s closet is jam-packed with the… Read full post »

Day before yesterday I get a call from a close friend I’ve known since grade nine. After years of sharing the sacred and profane along with the mundane, most if not all subjects get offered up in conversation between us.

She was calling to see if I could… Read full post »

Leslie held her closed hand discreetly over top of mine. 

“Some trucker gave these to my brother, it’ll help you stay awake,” she said dropping the pills into my palm.

“Duly noted,” I said putting them in my front pocket for safekeeping.… Read full post »

Okay, okay, I know ... everyone was doing their favourite things a couple weeks ago. I previously started a post of that nature but life intervened as it always does. I could give a re-cap of what's been going on the last few weeks but instead I'll share some pictures and… Read full post »

Part 1    Part 2 

 "Love's a mystery
It'll rise without a warning leaving evidence and clues
Love's a mystery" - Chrissie Hynde

Part I can be found here.

I nervously folded and shuffled the Tarot cards. She laid them out in a Celtic cross on the table. I was there for… Read full post »

(There is an instrumental below to follow, if you wish, along with these words).

Lately I’ve been talking
in snippets (like this)

all the years of constantly
communicating
of public and private
contemplating

inside my head
and out

has finally signed, sealed
and delivered me.

I’ve… Read full post »

 Vineyard Bonfire

*** 

So, we’re talking about the weather now are we?  Why, yes. Yes we are. The whole Northern seaboard is bracing for the bitter cold. It will be - 26°C here tonight.

When… Read full post »

Maybe it's the sight of what's here and what's not that reminds me of summertime when a chlorophyll rich canopy of lush grapevines dot the landscape.

Maybe it is the recent research I’ve done into the weather that has informed me that we get a daily average… Read full post »

The space I write in travels with me. When I close my eyes sentence fragments flash across my closed eyelids with words scrolling along on a pixilated screen.  

Sometimes I'm walking, sometimes I'm driving; sometimes I'm even making love.

And sometimes those words get transcribed on to pa… Read full post »

great wine begins with dirt
great sex begins in the imagination
great love begins in silence
then slowly sighs

great poetry finds the soul
great novels find the true story
of the people who walk the pages
on that long unknown road

great storms turn off electricity
and find light amidst darkness
great winds… Read full post »

Despite the rain forming droplets on the windowpane
 I'll venture out like every other New Year's Day
 and let my thoughts lead me. 

It is so mild a garden spider has spun a web… Read full post »

In between the

'out with the old

and in with the new'

let it be

Just as the dawn pushes

the dome of darkness

the world will spin 

on its tilted axis

oblivious to

our back slapping,

hand gladding

melo-drone of auld lang syne

bound in pithy… Read full post »

At this festive time of year I can’t help think back to when I worked in the trenches of the manic marketplace that is the urban shopping mall. For seven years straight I worked the floor selling the social lubricant that puts the… Read full post »