If you receive a wrinkled Sheet with wine rings and Almost illegible green ink, Forgive cryptic penmanship, Carets and inline doodles. I wanted to share my words With you. And no one else. Smudges and all. (Source: "Handmade Notes", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) This is the last stanza of a tribute to handwritten communication in an era of digital everything. Yes, I wrote it on my iPhone. No, ...
Private Beach
A real sign with a hint of temptation. Dare to trespass? To skinny dip? Settle in for a bonfire? There's something almost cinematic about this snapshot, even without seeing the sand and water. An invitation to imagine (if not to stop for a swim.) Age teaches us to sublimate our rebellious instincts, to respect the wishes and demands of others. Right? ...
Paris by Night
Perhaps we all live in darkness, drawn to the flicker of light emanating from a fading affair, vagrants bumping clumsily, intentionally, hungrily in a Paris night. (Source: "Paris by Night", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) Some poems are conceived of tenderness. Others erupt violently, gasping for air. This turgid fragment from a prose poem called "Paris by Night" is neither tender nor ...
Exist
"Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence." ~ C.G. Jung ...
Coiled
Ready. To irrigate. To strike. To be stripped of color and detail and shading and gradation. To discover. The form. The final version of this image appears as "New Growth" in 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed. ...
Noise
A garbage truck thunders past, doubling the thirty mile per hour speed limit. Then a slow car. And another. Then quiet except for the crinkle-strain-crinkle-strain of the palm paddles on the ceiling fan above my head. Type. Click, click, click. (Source: "Sound Escape", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) Excerpted from a soundscape poem originally called "Bucolic Study", but probably eventually ...