Today is the second national Poem In Your Pocket Day!
The idea is simple: select a poem you love then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends

To prepare for our soon-to-come summer in the desert, here’s a tanka-style exercise I recently penned and will carry in my pocket for the [...]

Last Friday … before Bunco night with the girls, before I got sick later that night, before spending the next days in bed doing battle with a very obtuse and stubborn flu bug … I went to Costco.
I loaded my cart with the requesite Bunco items — a bag of organic tortilla chips, Costco’s hip [...]

I’ve discovered that part of being a writer is to foster one’s opinions to a fine degree.  Dan says I’ve got a lock on the highly opinionated part, but he doesn’t know so much about the fine degree part.  I have an opinion about that, though I’ll save my thoughts for another post.  Just know [...]

I’d have been home well before now, had I not been so very, very late for lunch with two friends I hadn’t seen for nearly a year.  I circled the mall parking lot more intent with the ticking time on my watch than the location of the space I scooted into.  The mall is one [...]

“A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer.  A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.”
Ernest Hemingway
I’m not sure our friend, Hemingway, carefully thought through this statement.  In fact, none of my writer friends are either [...]

After a week of unpacking, sorting, putting away — today we’re less apt to say, “It’s in a box somewhere” and instead marvel at our progress.  The important things have been located.  We’ve unpacked our spoons and bowls now which means Ben & Jerry’s after dinner.  The teevee machine now lights up our evening lives [...]

We met when she was going through a divorce and I’d been single a number of years.  A mutual friend brought her to a jam session.  Back in that day, if you could bang pots and pans together, you could call yourself a musician.  We used the equipment of a local church (I think the [...]

I stopped this evening to grab a salad at my favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican place.  It’s my favorite.  It’s one of those little joints where you walk down the line and supervise what goes onto your plate.  I always order the Ensalada Bajia.   I walk along asking for a little of this … a lot of [...]

She shakes her dust rag sky at you, this place does.
She keeps your hands busy with your own dust rag.
Dueling dust rags.
First a shake of hers, then a wipe of yours.
It rained once here.
No one dusted that day; we, instead,
Stood in our doorways, chattering on about a different
Color on the sky.
–Auburn McCanta
The picture above is [...]

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
– Maya Angelou
You can go here to read about one of my favorite living poets … one who’s birthday just happens to be TODAY!!!
Born in 1928, Ms. Angelou is most known for her [...]