Poetic Ramblings on Society and Culture

Digging   Franklin N.C. was like any old pit Natural beauty pocked with poverty Lacklustering in gross inequity   We traipsed about in the staining red clay Hoping to unearth some brilliant jewel, Black dust or even a small flake of gold   Avoiding those loose roadside slews in town Who’s salted pails sat pre-marked and rationed With the lapidarists shards and discards   Digging in the crystal cold mountain air We found something grander than pink sapphires Something worth more than any carrot weight   That grit in our teeth and below the nails While reminiscing with Norm the mine hand We struck ... Read Full Story

THE PEACE PILLAR I am the pillar of peace, your hopes the veil that would hide is not solid nor the sky brass that there's no way through or are all men's hearts bound,as with ropes? * The Pillar of peace is just the promise the gift itself, all transcendent don't you see that? what makes men so blind? the clouds of your minds cause a miss * Come all you children into the light but you'll have to crowd together my rejoicing is roundness, no-one first this will not be acheived by might * I pour me down, my peace is for you ... Read Full Story

In the same way God is in the Cracks: A Narrative in Voices (Black Moss Press, 2006) is sequenced to form a book-length narrative, one “best read in the order printed,” I am planning on doing something similar with Dr. Sward’s Cure for Melancholia . The characters, Dr. Sward (a podiatrist), melancholic son, and even the family dog, take on a life of their own. The book necessarily has highs and lows and the clinically depressed son is bound to reveal himself as in desperate need of help. That’s part of the drama. And we’re speaking here of a work in progress. The story ... Read Full Story

New passages same books new tolling same bell Same God on the hijackers lips when the planes crashed and the towers fell New devilry same beast new revelry same feast As far as the west is from the east As far as terror is from peace… Throughout history, the beast had always hated the same things And sought to still the impassioned fervor that freedom brings The progression of a hate-based faith to a racist benediction Versus freedom of speech and of the press, of liberty and religion Any thing that ignobles the individual in this grimy plight A pleading face to Heaven turns, ... Read Full Story

So why can't the dead counsel the living? In Blake, A Biography by Peter Ackroyd, the author writes, "Blake had told her [Catherine, the poet's wife] that he would never leave her, and indeed she saw him continually when 'he used to come and sit with her for two or three hours every day. He took his chair and talked to her, just as he would have done had he been alive; he advised her as to the best mode of selling his engravings.'" Excerpted from God is in the Cracks (Black Moss Press, 2006), here's a sample of how the podiatrist father communicates ... Read Full Story