Semi-Urban Cartography

A blanket of snow came in a rush on Tuesday night. No one predicted it until moments before when weather models acquiesce and precious barometric electricity takes over. The warm, wet front that the authorities correctly called for pushed in on the city from the ocean. What it didn’t do was push the cold front [...]

[Read more →]

Teach your children. Teach your parents.
Take the time along the way to teach yourself — that’s the sentiment I keep reminding myself is crucial.
Unlike most people I encounter throughout this walk, I don’t make proper New Years resolutions: I make birthday pacts and resolutions (that day which is my watershed, January 21st). In step with [...]

[Read more →]

In my thoughts frequently these days is the idea that being creative is an act of self-preservation. For some. I get up two hours earlier than necessary to write each morning because I spiritually have to; in my day-to-day work, encounters stage as events in a larger fictional realm; the gumption to get up the [...]

[Read more →]

* I use a few dictionary references. My New Comprehensive A-Z Crossword Dictionary is quite useful for abstractions both established and potential. For a thesaurus (of course) I use Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus (Updated & Expanded 3rd Edition). My basic dictionary is The Concise Oxford English Dictionary which I got for Christmas in 1996. Lastly, [...]

[Read more →]

I spent most of this cold, fog laden Sunday morning in an attempt to reconcile old poetry. I keep a stack of pieces to reflect on close at hand in case their muse wants to bite again. It’s like so many ghost stories being retold. Frequently enough though the riddle has a way of unlocking [...]

[Read more →]

As recently as Friday morning on this blog, I described on-going frustration with a game of “wait and see” that has taken over my creative life. Progress with a prospective agent has inadvertently led to stasis at the writing desk. Four treatments. A dozen poems. A few really promising short stories. None of them spark [...]

[Read more →]

More than two months have passed. The weather has changed back into Autumn the season where it seems in perpetual returning. One more turn of the calendar and its into the holidays, sliding quickly into the end of the year benchmark. Time to know where have I been.
I’ve found myself in this transition, waiting. Two [...]

[Read more →]

They describe a quiet place. They would describe it as yours, somewhere comfortable and familiar. Your pens and pencils, paper taken from your drawer, your ream. They would say that this is the place. Arrive there early, in your time, ideally the same each morning before anyone else is awake. You will hear the garbage [...]

[Read more →]