Category Archives: Poetry

NOTE: From Bud and Mary. The year was 1956 when I was 14. Friday Night Fights Every Night The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports–Boxingfrom Madison Square Gardenwith the Look Sharp/Be Sharp theme songand Jimmy Powers announcingwas a regular Friday night eventfor … Continue reading →

She Loves You The Kennedy assassination stunned the nationlike nothing else since the attack on Pearl Harbor.We all remember what we were doingwhen we heard the news. What followed was six weeks of sorrow.The grieving widow and her two small … Continue reading →

Back Jackknife for Bud Baldwin His rigid arms are pointing down as he walksthe diver’s practiced pace toward the edgeand deftly spins around to set his feet.The crowd grows quiet as he is on his toes,to seek and find the … Continue reading →

[tanka] the boy who cameto be my fatherkissed her cheekwhat did my face look likebefore that happened?

The Alpha and Omega of Gratitude Giving thanks in your heart is the alpha of gratitude.Gratitude is the sum of what you sense and say.Remembering to offer your thanks is the omega of gratitude. Longing for things you lack is … Continue reading →

[tanka] a pinwheeling leafstrikes the watercourseand floats around the bendgone foreverdo you ever think of me?

Wheel of Water For God’s Creation Grass emerges from the winter snow.Blades lengthen. Flowers grow.Trees in the wind sway and sough.The summer of life is all we know.Autumn breezes start to blowand all of life begins to slow.Brown turf is … Continue reading →

Clicking Hyperlinks John 15:9-17 Above all, love is seen in the loveof the Father. When we click on the word Father,it opens on the Father’s love for the Son.When we click on the word Son,it opens on the Son’s declarationthat … Continue reading →

1066 Historians lust for great events,the violent one percent,so nothing happens nearly every year. Stamford Bridge and Hastings stretched a month;whatever happened years beforeor since that raven glut? For each combatant, hundreds morewere not involved, as Norseman, Norman, Celtand Saxon … Continue reading →

NOTE: I wrote the following poem a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, claim they are waging a Christian holy war in … Continue reading →

Summer Romance Of all my days to middle age,you gave me less than ten.So little time from moon to rising moon.A meteor flared and fellon an August night now thirty winters dead.The lingering light:for that I give you thanks.

[haiku] the hard-breathing troutexplaining deathto a child NOTE: This is a true story. When our son Matthew was eight years old, I took him fishing for the first time. I had to explain what happens to the trout after it … Continue reading →

The Hills of the Central Coast Under a raspberry haze, row after rowof the smooth-sanded hills of the Coast Rangecompress into a flat two-dimensional view.Except for the accidental live oak hereand there, bare grassland is all I see.Telescoped ridgelines are … Continue reading →