Category Archives: Literary

The end of summer in saw the beginning of a new world for me. I became a freshman in high school. Beyond the obvious torments of adolescence such as which after shave to wear after learning to shave, the embarrassment of having to commune with indifferent older women in the hallways of Princeton High School,Continue reading “The Cult of Mediocrity”

I live in an apartment complex not far from the University of Georgia in Athens about fifty miles from Atlanta. It’s a fine place with tree-line boulevards, landscapers constantly mowing-trimming-raking-planting, a small lake with a resident flock of geese, and wrought iron gates in and out that must be opened with a code. The gates,Continue reading “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”

Some thoughts on writing poems: Being retired from teaching, I have more time to think about things that matter to me, at least in terms of a joie de vivre. My wife might say more thinking on my part is a curse rather than a blessing. That may be true but discursive thought often createsContinue reading “Best Words/Best Order”

I know my father had a good fastball, a better curve, and a great knuckleball. I know this because when I was a child in the late 1950’s I watched him pitch in a charity baseball game at Gil Hodges Field in Princeton, Indiana. He was not quite forty years old at the time. JimContinue reading “The Shill”

Collateral Damage: I’m reflecting on an idea I’ve been hearing from some of the white, Western, Eurocentric, Christianized, non-combatant politicians who are preaching an escalation to our involvement in both the bombing campaign and the ground wars around the globe, but particularly in the Middle East. Forget the fact that we are leaving Afghanistan afterContinue reading “Collateral Damage”

Thank goodness! I’ve been saved from hygienic disaster by the kindness of a soap-selling corporation that advertises on Face Book. Morning showers are removing my acid mantle made up of sweat and sebum—sebum is a word guaranteed to elicit illicit giggles from all adolescents—and this mantle-layer-blanket-shroud protects my skin from unsavory bacteria-dryness-irritation-congestion. It’s sort ofContinue reading “Salvation”

Many words in the English language require a study of perspectives and context for clarity. Poverty is one of those words that must have an explanatory environment to convey specificity. An impoverished person can be extremely poor in relation to economics or with a lack of imagination or by a religious rejection of the materialContinue reading “Poverty”

I am not a sociologist, anthropologist, historian, psychologist, or any other kind of academic ologist. At best, I’m a pretty good mixologist at cocktail parties and quite a cunning linguist. So, I have no actual expertise concerning the answers I’m going to give to these questions asked by university students during my teaching years. AtContinue reading “The Hipness of Hippie-ness”

It’s late in my life. My time should be given over to fishing and grandchildren rather than a re-examination of morals and values that have always been fluid anyway. But changes in perspective and perception create reality both in an intellectual way and in a sensory way as well and are very likely to makeContinue reading “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye”

Driving along Okeechobee Boulevard and watching the sun rise from the ocean, I saw a man standing on a street corner beneath a palm tree and a traffic light. This man was Florida, at least in my mind. I had come to this stretch of white sand between Palm Beach County and Miami where landContinue reading “When Hope Is a Shadow”