CREATIVE NONFICTION
Memoir of a Marriage in Poetry
SHORT STORIES
13 Ways of Looking at Dying, Just Before, and the Moment After – Story Published in Cobalt Review
Us Ancient – Story Published in Drunk Monkeys
When Things Go Missing – Story Published in Unchartered Frontiers
Looking For Bobby – Story Published in Bareback Lit
Fine and Shimmering– Short Story, a favorite
POETRY
Night Crossing, Sea of Cortez
The sea appears so simple
With a dark, indulgent face,
The stars there twice reflected
Like a world spun out of space.
Our sloop shoots through the cosmos,
Through a mute and moonless night,
Our wake a fiery comet
Streaming effervescent light.
With all the universe inert
We slip from star to star,
Then reach across the Milky Way
Toward galaxies afar.
Eons swirl, light-years unfurl
And none can still our flight,
Leaping toward the infinite to
Apprehend the light.
This poem was set to music by composer Troy Armstrong. The choral arrangement is hauntingly beautiful. He calls it “Swimming Among the Stars”. You can listen HERE. Read the blog post where Troy found the poem: Swimming Among the Stars
On a Bus to Papeete
Wind through the window
streaming through my hair,
I in my stillness
hurtling through the air,
trees and grasses and roads bending,
faces with flowers and houses blending,
objects like petals on a dark stream, streaming
through me, leave me, clean
and empty as a hollow reed, still
faintly ringing with the rhapsody of being.
Read about what inspired this poem: Into the Flow, Mountain Top and Market Place Experiences
Garden in Moorea
Walking among flowers,
drowning in scent,
petals assault me,
cool and bent.
Pistils are pounding,
stamens stab,
colors colliding
stun and grab.
Walking among flowers,
I die a sweet death.
Bloodied and trampled,
borne by my last breath,
I lay like a light
on the garden wall,
then swooping, swallow
flowers and all.
Read more about this poem, what inspired me here: Walking Among Flowers
Isle of Pines (Vanuatu)
green and thin
that wends away
and wheels me in,
rising, falling, tree
by tree, lanced by
light through sward
and leaf, breathing
pines that breathe
in me like heady wine
flowing free, green
above and green
below, no in no out,
no high no low, wind
like water everywhere
I walk on water, float
on air, drifting mindless
round the bend, bursting
out bursting in.
Like Flowers Falling Everywhere, A Morning Prayer
Everywhere I look I see you,
I see us. This fragile hand,
this blue pen, this yellow pad.
These fingers gently folded,
Embracing the eagerness of
your movements across the page.
This tender paper accepting
All we write. These words that
rise up and lay down, so simple.
You are what I feel. This beating heart,
this circling breath, this wide sphere of
silence that enfolds us. Your soft sigh.
The day waits. It pours out of us whole
and clear, unending. How kind you are.
Kindness like flowers falling everywhere.
I enjoyed the poetry on your writing-dedicated site. It’s beautiful. We seem to share similar notions about nature and its holiness (if I can use that term). I encourage you to read Albert Camus’ early lyrical essays. My favorite prose passage of all time is from his essay ‘Summer in Algiers’ and reads: “But to be pure means to rediscover that country of the soul where one’s kinship with the world can be felt, where the throbbing of one’s blood mingles with the violent pulsations of the afternoon sun.” Nature does indeed seem sacred. I suppose we’re pagans. Personally, I think being a nature-loving heathen is one of the best ways to live.
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Thank you. Cody. So glad you went to my writing site and liked the poetry. I would use that word holiness too when I feel immersed in nature. I love that line from Camus you wrote–just beautiful. I’ll check out his poetry and the rest of that essay too. Thank you for bringing to it to me.
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I like going through your website. So much interesting information, feelings and thoughts at the same time. Congratulation and keep it up.
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Thank you for coming here and spending time. That’s what this is all about, and I appreciate that.
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