Poetry & Prose

“There is a difference if we see something with a pencil in our hand or without one.” Paul Valery French poet (1871 - 1945) One summer afternoon in 1955, Denton, Montana, I walked down a wet sidewalk smelling of recent rain, to buy a pen and a notebook at Mr. Graham’s...

To live a poetic life one does not need to write poetry. One must be in a constant state of arrival, alert always in uncontested presence, every pulsing pore a point of entry, every sensation welcomed by a curious nerve. The practice of vigilant attending with a...

When I was doing it, I was doing it. I did not take notes. Why would i? I was immersed in doing it. It needed to be done. I was doing it. I paid little attention to the sensations of doing it, not the weight of the hammer in my hand, not the feel of the smooth wooden...

Duende, the shadow that is not absence but the opposite of light. Roots sucking metamorphic darkness up out of soil. Mineral density borrowed by the bone, unknown to the mischievous  the brain, the earth pulsing deep beneath the world the vibrant ache of knowing you...

I walk through the mall being viewed and reviewed. It troubles me to know that for a moment my life might be a figment of a stranger’s imagination. I do not feel comfortable in your version of me. You fictionalize. You invent. You construe. You fantasize real people....

He woke up in the morning with a roof over his head. No surprise there. Everything quite dependable. The roof was there when he went to bed. He woke up in the morning with hot water to wash. No surprise there. Everything quite dependable. He washed his face with hot...

I. Two days after a mass shooting, in a distant American city, I go to our local mall to prove that I am brave, A police officer guards his way among tables alert for alarms. He ignores me. I am disappointed with relief. I am not suspected of being dangerous. II. A...

poetry is a small door into the vast world