Quite a Long Poem
Cop me a ride all the way to Cassandra’s, the poets are snorting up rhymes on verandas you might have replied though the take was Philandra’s I forgot on the way to go grab Colonel Sanders…. Well the hydrant was loaded with fairy dust makings and teachers once said life was there for the takings,…
Whispers in the Dark
(From yesterday) I was going to be really early – now I’m just on time. My own books of poetry whispered as I moved through the dark living room, called me once more to the recliner and just a few moments of pride. Poetry is reporting. Language – I’ve been considering lately, more likely deciding…
Atomic Monkey
I’d like to talk about my poem “Atomic Monkey”, and in doing so, talk about my whole life. When I got sober I use to go to these meetings where people trying to get alcohol and drugs out of their lives would gather and talk about how that was going. Sometimes a whole group of…
The Me of Me
Periodically, I’d say maybe three or four times a week – more if I’m “on” – I sit at this keyboard and do “timed writings”, kind of stream-of conscious, automatic writing in which I try to begin with a particular thought and then dish on that from there, the timer on the phone set for…
Shower the People You Love
I am about to ask you to become a Patron of mine. A someone who supports my devotion to and efforts at creativity – in my particular case as a writer and an artist. And as an artist working in both oils and acrylic, drawing with pencil and charcoal. Working at keyboards and coffee shop…
Addendum of Sorts
9/16/18 Verbatim ‘Morning Pages’ I have a distinct sense, which feels to be clearing with time, that the “Couch” Blog is in fact something special – special for me as an opportunity to move closer to focus and devotion and intention, loyalty even, than what I have usually wrung from myself in the past.…
Kind of How it Goes
A couple of weeks ago a friend named Eric stopped by the house. He lives up near Seattle and was down in Portland for the weekend. Talking on the phone a week or so earlier he was describing a room he’d rented in a house under construction – the floors were torn up, he was…
Surfing Around the Rail Trail
There’s another story that proceeds this one, but I’ll begin here. The third or fourth week of May 2007 my son Cameron and I completed a cross-country father-son journey and adventure from Oakland, California to Cape Cod, that peninsula-like-thing that sticks out from the Massachusetts coastline. Technically homeless (me), Cameron and I had spent a…