gibbous moon

my daughter’s voicemail —
gibbous moon
behind the clouds

arrest

what will it take
to make it stop?
burned and broken,
it bleeds,
it beats.
life pours from it
like an open sewer.
my children drink from it
while I slowly
soak
the earth.

sweet sixteen

sweet sixteen —
the dogwood
blossoms

low on toner

low on toner —
the sound
of rain

twilight

twilight —
a pigeon roosts
on an old caboose

Times Square

Times Square —
the off-duty cabbie
reads his Bible

low tide

low tide —
seagulls squabble
over a beer can

mining the vacuum

the following article was recently submitted to gotPoetry magazine:

I like to think of myself as a poet who moonlights in IT to pay the bills. Imagine my angst when I find myself sleeping on the train instead of trying to capture the day’s observations in words, or killing time even less productively:

missing my stop
I lose another
game of solitaire

I’ve written in the past about using one’s creative dry spell as a source of inspiration. Other helpful resources include on-line communities that encourage spontaneous exchanges of haiku “links”, an informal variation of the Japanese renku. This enables a poet to leverage external sources of inspiration, focusing instead on the act of writing.

Another thing I tend to do is to look back through my own archives, not trying to reinvent past experience as much as shaking the cobwebs off my pen and engaging myself in the mechanics of poetry. Consistently good poetry is a product of exercise as much as it is the product of inspiration. So why not practice by dusting off an old chestnut and applying a few variations?

Here's one from January 2000:

between sleeping passengers
commuter sunrise

Seven years later, I immediately ask “isn’t the word commuter redundant? And isn’t there something more interesting I can do with the word sunrise?” Let’s try this variation:

between sleeping passengers          sunrise

Obviously the possibilities don’t end there, but isn’t that the point?

broken clouds

broken clouds —
our dog sniffs
the front door

writer's block

writer’s block —
mud
beneath the snowmelt

Marco Island

Marco Island —
a gull flies off
with a gourmet truffle

Monday

Monday —
I take one step backward
into dog shit

taxes due

taxes due
I spill my wine
on a linen tablecloth

Be Very Afraid...

...because Extra Special Bitter Bunny is not cute and cuddly, but is instead a beer-guzzling gray-haired geezer weilding a cordless hair trimmer. Note the expression of resignation on his very own son Nathaniel — a veritable sheep being led to the slaughter.

a Good Friday...

...for brewing, that is. My son Josiah and I cooked up a 5-gallon batch of an India Pale Ale that we are simply calling “MenaBrew”. It should be ready for conspicuous consumption by early June.

The ingredients:

1.8 kg Munton’s IPA Bitter extract (Original Gravity 1040-1044)
1/4 pound Briess 40 Lovibond Crystal Malt
1/4 pound Munton’s Wheat Malt
3 oz Pellets Chinook (for Bittering)
2 oz Whole Flower East Kent Golding (for Flavor)
2 oz Imported British Fuggles (for Aroma)
1 tsp Irish moss
Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

The method:

We activated the yeast on Wednesday and created a starter on Thursday, using the new yeast and 1/4 pound of the Crystal Malt mixed into about a quart of water. On Friday afternoon the Real Science began. In total, the wort boiled for 60 minutes: the Chinook hops were added immediately, the East Kent Goldings after 45 minutes and the Fuggles while the wort was being cooled. The Irish moss was added at the 30-minute mark. The brew is currently fermenting away in a cool and dark corner of the kitchen. We’ll probably bottle it in two weeks.

Cheers!

Downtown Crossing

Downtown Crossing —
a stranger asks
“where will you spend eternity?”

April Fool

April Fool
wearing a light jacket
in Boston

more foolishness

April Fool