Welcome to my blog! Essays, poems, stories, anecdotes, reviews–they’re all here.  Late night ramblings–yawn!–morning’s jittery jottings, sober assessments of the ridiculous–they’re here ,too.  To begin with here’s a poem about my town, Savannah GA.

Jubilate 

(Savannah, 2010)

Grant that azaleas are a timid pause

while two thugs, Sweat and Gnat,

enforcers of the summer Mafioso laws,

decide if you can eat lunch on this bench

or that;

 

Grant the camellia’s sneezy, sniffling elf,

dousing its stamen’s gold

with clouds of pollen for your barely breathing self,

until your summer dreams give up and  morph

to cold;

 

Grant that it’s now the wealthy retirees

permit the hoi polloi

to stroll through their palazzos for exclusive fees

and photograph their faux desires from Greece

or Troy;

 

Still, what we wryly designate as spring

(I know, it’s hard to tell)

lifts up our ground-bound eyes and stirs our tongues to sing

His petalled glory. Jubilate! He snapped

the spell!

 

And, on a more personal note, a poem about my friend, Brayton Dasher:

 

Elegy for Brayton

 (Macon, GA, 2004)

 Who can I mock my masking with?

Who knows the label Frankie Lane was on?

I miss your yip-yipping squeal,

Your killer sex appeal:

Your blue eyes, true lies, rakish and sweet are gone.

 

Your spazoid passes, your klutzy catch!

Your piercing gaze: You ladies, come-on!

You drove for us, drunk and screaming.

You, sober, beaming:

Your blue eyes, true lies, rakish and sweet are gone.

 

Your Everly tenor sometimes cracked.

We tongue-picked on “Folsom Prison,”

Pumping our chests with your rusted weights

To stay the deadly gates.

Your blue eyes, true lies, rakish and sweet are gone.

 

I’ve been down rivers and I’ve been down streams,

But, son, you were something, and you flow on,

Ki-yi-yippy in that yodeling whine.

You walked a lonely, lonely line.

Your blue eyes, true lies, rakish and sweet are gone.