Author Archives
Writings. Often within the intersection between fiction and non-fiction.
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Reading, A Life – July 6, 2021
I had the honor to be the featured poet at the Nexus First Tuesday poetry series on July 6, 2021. Here is a YouTube Recording of the reading: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=301405625101362&ref=sharing A number of the poems featured in this reading are showcased… Read More ›
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Poetry and Writers Critique Groups
Join our Poetry Critique Group every Thursday night or our Writers Critique Group on Wednesdays. The night begins at 6:30 PM EST, 5:30 PM CST, and 3:30 PM PST and continues virtually on Zoom for two hours. Regardless of your… Read More ›
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Alexa
I hear a baby crying through my Echo. It cries under the music no matter what station I ask Alexa to play. Someone, please, get your baby. His crying is past the point of screaming, He makes the hoarse whine… Read More ›
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Love Sonnet with a Coda
We grew up handling Glocks (I guess, a Southern thing), loved the grey metal stock as we practiced their ring. Let’s reinvent the Glock, give it raptors’ wings to hunt over the blocks— count the carnage it brings, mask the… Read More ›
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2020 Update
Recently, I was asked if my website is relevant to the average visitor? Why should anyone visit this site when we have so much to do (and read) in our lives? My goal is to highlight shared experiences and feelings… Read More ›
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Recent Postings
These poems, recently posted, can be found in the following directories: I Dream a Storm – Posted 9/25/20 – 2018 Directory; Winter Hours – Posted 9/11/20 – 2018 Directory; The Spider’s Widow – Posted 8/21/20 – Early years Directory; Winter… Read More ›
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Tilt
That morning, sunlight shines through the house in a different way. Saul, wakes up, shakes Rachel, “My god, it’s happening, like they say – Remember? ‘When the sun rises in the South and sets in the North, heed the… Read More ›
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My Beautiful Nymphomaniac
It’s my birthday. I am fifteen wishing I was twenty, and I am with Julienne walking up Washington Street, and she is definitely twenty or maybe even older, and I am in love with her and to me she is… Read More ›
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Reveille
The moon is leaving too soon. A bell of a glistening bugle, it swirls silvery notes through half-closed blinds across the early-morning room, composing a refracted lyric next to the antique mirror and a picture of a child playing near… Read More ›
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Emergency Procedure
If I lived on the Blue Ridge, I could be healthy, work as a craftsman, build a log cabin, forget this complacent life. If I moved to the Outer Banks, I could eat better, fish off a wooden pier… Read More ›
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Resurrection: Come, Ed Roach, Walk Tall Tonight
The notice reads as if Ed Roach died yesterday— the family asking everyone to celebrate the life of their 24-year-old son. Oh, plow the red clay, yellowed leaf, A black man in the county back in 1920, Ed was… Read More ›
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Son and Moon
Ghost in the afternoon, the moon dangles, a pocked trophy my boy pretends to drive. He dreams of monster trucks and something cool to blow up come Fourth of July. At light, the moon snatches at wild grass, lost… Read More ›
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At the Feeder
The cardinal watches me through the kitchen window, reddish-brown breast, orange tuft and beak, hooded-eyes fathoms deep. She stares into the glass, begging answers to my question: Where, sweet bird, is your handsome life-mate of last summer? Now,… Read More ›
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Southern Snow Storm
My neighbors trudge out of their homes, like gnomes, after a two-day storm so unnatural for the South, wearing worn garments from deep in their closets—knit caps, scratchy coats, and old ski gloves—surveying their roofs and pines to determine the… Read More ›
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I Found Your Grave in the Midday Sun
I found your grave in the midday sun, I had grown old– but you were still young. Like a sad intruder, on my own I… Read More ›
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Winter Hours
Nudging your shoulder reaching for the clock. I had a bad dream. Hon, it’s cold, go back to sleep. Picking up the newspaper near our ice-covered mailbox—headlines soaked, pages frozen, obituaries lost to the late-night storm—our driveway smothered in a… Read More ›
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Sestina: White Men are Killing Us
Imagine two elderly white men dying at the hands of a raving lunatic– a forty-year-old black man roaming through White churches to commit mayhem. Imagine him loose in a busy, suburban supermarket or a bustling parking lot with a shiny,… Read More ›
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Recipe to be Happy
Yes, back then, I lost the ingredients to be happy. Instead, what I found, for me, wasn’t the best recipe, but now, I do realize, back then, you were happy. Yet, back when you trusted in my new… Read More ›
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I Dream a Storm
The rain pounces in violent waves, stripping trees and bursting streams with a torrent of pine and clay. Venomous snakes thrive, slithering across the crumbling sky. Ahead of us, sparkling crack-offs contort in a demented dance of electric shocks on the… Read More ›
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Memorial
I. Someone from Somerset, or a group of them, beat him for embezzling their money. That’s what my older brother, Charley, told me. But Mother, back then, said he was robbed in an alley and came away with a broken arm… Read More ›
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Our First Family Meeting
Mother called our meeting on a Saturday in August back when we lived on the farm. We were finishing our lunch when she announced she and Daddy wanted to speak with us. Daddy stood at the window staring at the shimmering… Read More ›
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The Point of Texting and Driving
It takes no energy alone and behind the wheel to swerve into someone coming towards me. We could die on this Interstate together. Or should I wait until the other driver is ready? I long for the crack of glass… Read More ›
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Update: What’s this About
March 2018. An update to my website. My motivations have changed somewhat since I wrote my last “What’s This About” essay back in 2013. In my earlier piece, the focus of my writing was on creative nonfiction. I had much… Read More ›
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Villanelle: Yet, What’s to Come After?
Losing my job isn’t a disaster. Not when telling my wife the truth that night. Yet, how can I say what’s to come after? The two of us know how much this matters, why do I feel this time… Read More ›
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O Pioneers
She said I should wait for her call. I sat watching the phone, worried. She and I didn’t get along, that’s true. When she rang, I knew where she was going as she proceeded to commend me for traveling… Read More ›
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Fragments
We met in a rupture of this world, missing pieces to cross the void. What kept us from heights so imagined? Why swim in a swamp so contagious? I’ve been deceived. It’s true, this loss. But I know now … Read More ›
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Sonia: My Sauerkraut Maiden
Sonia, my sauerkraut maiden, hates me. What must I have said, I can’t imagine. I shop the market every Saturday– she treats me like a head of bad cabbage. Sonia, oh Sonia, the garden, your booth! My, how you’ve ripened!… Read More ›
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Facing the Cracking Storm
It was as if you and I had been caught on a flashing, thunder-embroiled plain, we were both part of the many souls lost– in the sweltering heat and slashing rain. Yet, you found me desperate and distraught, my fragile… Read More ›
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MyArt
Trash sorter breaking drywall copper wire, coal miner open pit fire, iron forger stoking flames higher, higher. I know what’s real: iron, copper, steel. ****
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Nothing to Think About or Feel
Christmas that particular year occurred during a strange period in our lives. Unlike with my father back when I was a teenager—my father who died of a lingering cancer four years after he separated from my Mother and left us… Read More ›
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Blackbird Pie
Tick tock A crooked man A crooked box A crooked hand A crooked clock Crooked woman Goldilocks Baking oven Piping hot ****
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Telling Stories
there is a space in the hours before dawn when it’s just me and the dog wondering what’s going on phantoms confessions graves to rob ****
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Death Comes with Christmas to the New Krispy Kreme
It’s a December opening at the deliciously new Krispy Kreme. Nearly six a.m. and we all are waiting to snake through the gleaming doors. Crowds forming, coughing and fuddled in the frosty morning, fidgeting with winter coats and paper coupons,… Read More ›
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Lumps
The Lumps Appeared Ten Days Ago All Over My Back And neck– Like Snow. Only Worse. **** My Doctor Insists She can Pick Them Off As quick As they Pop up If I Wish. Like Pimples– Only More So. ****… Read More ›
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Hobbled
Hobbled. Mentally and physically! This is how I diagnose my situation, my crisis of the moment. I am in my ratty underwear early on a Sunday morning, half-lying over the kitchen counter and half-sitting on one of the counter stools…. Read More ›
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Charley and the Movie Theater Hoods
As a kid, I had a love-hate relationship with the Somerset movie theater: I loved the movies but hated the hoods hanging out there. The old movie theater was located on our side of Somerset and took only twenty minutes… Read More ›
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The Best Year Ever
It was the best year ever. This was before my colossal bet with my older brother Charley. Before everything started unraveling. Still, it wasn’t as if our bet had anything to do with what occurred subsequently. Rather, as a result… Read More ›
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Tuna for Christmas
Suzie couldn’t believe all the plans we had in store for her. She cocked her ears back when we told her everything, but she didn’t move when we reached out to touch her, and she even let Jerry, Allison, and… Read More ›
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Old Ironsides, A Poem of the Modern Family
Somehow I knew they were fighting over which one would hold sway – no, not Mother and Daddy, but rather, Mrs. Daniels or Mrs. Gosling, my two third grade teachers. They must have decided, perhaps unconsciously, that I was the… Read More ›
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The Trail
The weather was cooler now. He looked down the wide, tree-covered path as it disappeared into the forest and took a deep breath. He stretched his arms across his chest, ran his hand through his hair, and started running. He… Read More ›
jonathan giles 