The Sailor has a favorite bar, in every port of call, A favorite girl too, slender, stout, or tall; I’m no exception to the rule, immemorial in its time, Not so very particular, though her beauty be sublime; My favorite port of call, my favorite among the dozens, Rota Spain and sweet Susanna, and all her pretty cousins; Black hair my green-eyed beauty, and tiny … Continue reading A Sailor’s Favorite Bar
It’s that time of year! Originally posted July 6th, 2014 A leaf is a thing, That brings joy to my heart, Vibrant green, With points like a star, She hangs from the limb, waving at me, O, pretty leaf, what do you see? So live your life like a leaf, Just hangin’ around, And when your time comes, Just leap for the ground, A flying … Continue reading Live Your Life Like A Leaf
O, you winsome devil, you Grinning face turned skyward Round about your flaming head Laughing rays around you rise Seeding smiles in your eyes I cannot escape your sight Tho heaved my girth across the sky Your taunting likeness follows Aboil with rage and callow Berating heat upon your face You laugh and turn with me In coy defiance of my dread In darkness is … Continue reading O, You Winsome Devil You
Pressed against glass, face down, born again in the cloud. Another memory retained for…what? “Marianne loves Bobby. 12th Grade. 17 Years old.” That lasted nine months before ending in bruises, abortion, and divorce. Yet, the photos remain, reminders of erstwhile lovers and friends, a past suffused in shade. Sadness the emotion as album pages flutter by, the memories that began in happiness later viewed from … Continue reading Honey
What began in fellowship of open arms, broad smiles and welcoming words soon fell into routine. The wonder of the inchworm’s humped-back crawl faded as attention drifted elsewhere. Like a prairie dog village, heads sank into oblivious existence as curiosity waned. \ I could not describe the Bavarian village, framed by towering Alpine mountains and last seen as a child, well-enough so you’d know it … Continue reading The Filing Cabinet. And a Poem
My first attempt at Haiku. Many thanks to Hannah for the inspiration 🙂 Flying on the wing Cross wind changes direction Wife calls to dinner Continue reading Haiku: On the Wing
I love ramen. I could eat it every day. My wife is Japanese but that isn’t why I love ramen. Her mother was a wonderful cook, but she isn’t the reason I love ramen either. Her dad was born in Honolulu to immigrant parents. Nor he or they. They worked in the pineapple fields and later cut sugar cane. Mr. Ono was a WWII hero … Continue reading Ramen
Curled up in ringlets Electric parts of you, Shoulder length distractions Thoughts are all askew, Hope for sleep abandoned Your pillow’s made for two, Nose to nose connection Our favored point of view. Random touches, random whispers, Fingers playing finders keepers, Hidden fragrance in your smile, Let me breathe you for a while. Chastened by your virtue Encouraged by your sighs Midnight flame rekindled My … Continue reading Curled Up In You
Susanna Avila, my Catalan beauty, woman of Spain. Coy smile held mystery, Unknowable history, Too briefly our souls entwined; This beauteous love, my destiny. Soulful gaze, emerald eyes piercing, Black hair dancing with night, Skin purest translucent white, Slender and graceful, slim elfin form, Delicate, raven-haired sprite. Ivory shoulders, smooth marble breast, Face fairer than Venus’ race, Spirit virgin, chaste, Ethereal, supernal essence; Tender, enchanting … Continue reading My Catalan Love
🙂 This should be hummed to a happy tune 🙂 (but I didn’t need to tell you that ❤ ) When I was a young boy, I wished for the world When I grew up I found such a beautiful girl She loved me and I loved her And our love made the world a wonderful blur Around and around and around we danced Oh, … Continue reading She Loves Me and I Love Her
Love arrives breathing, warming love that develops, pulses from your heart, love beating keeping time, love’s symphony surrounds us, Love. Love before death, soothing love that envelops, light dimming in your eyes, love cherished and remembered, love’s eyes closed forever, Love. Continue reading Love, Ten Times Over
I wish I could ride a skipping stone far and far across the sea And skip ashore that distant land where flew the dreams I’d dreamed I’d follow my dreams to where she lay dreaming my dreams of her And wake her from deep slumber and gather her into me To tell her how I’d longed for her but feared she were a dream A … Continue reading Skipping Stones
On the flight deck, broiling hot sun, bright blue sky, blue sea, whitecaps throwing spindrift with the wind, another day in the Persian Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’m standing between eighty thousand pounds of Hornet and sixty thousand pounds of thrust at full throttle, two fighter aircraft held back against their will, straining to break free, to pierce the sky, my head on a … Continue reading The Roof
It’s that time of year! Originally posted July 6th, 2014 The leaf is a thing, That brings joy to my heart, Vibrant green, With points like a star, She hangs from the limb, waving at me, O, pretty leaf, what do you see? So live your life like a leaf, Just hangin’ around, And when your time comes, Just leap for the ground, A flying … Continue reading Live Your Life Like A Leaf
Thank you so much for reading along and supporting my effort. This novel is thirty years in the making and has been a journey of remembrance, blood, sweat, and tears. Most of the characters are based on real people. Tom’s and Sam’s Susanna was my girlfriend when I was stationed in Spain; yes, she died. Aida was a girlfriend in the Philippines. Lek was an acquaintance in … Continue reading Status: A Wished-For Love
Poor Fervor His neighbors thought him rude He never could remember The Spanish words for Please. (Silly, ain’t I 🙂 Word of the Day Continue reading Poor Fervor
Love isn’t cheap, although love can be cheapened. Love at any cost exacts an incalculable toll on the human soul. A five-dollar short time will get you love in Olongapo City, but what kind of love is that? Even a ten-dollar long time, an all-nighter, gets you nothing but relief, one more conquest to secure your manhood, and another sea story for the guys at work. Where’s the love? Where’s the … Continue reading On Love: Its Toll and Reward
Smiling at someone takes less effort than avoiding them. Who knows, you might make their day…get asked out, get married, honeymoon in Tahiti, have kids, grandkids, buy an RV, roam the country. Or, just walk on by and smile at someone else 🙂 Continue reading Smile
Roger Bannister, the first athlete to break the four-minute mile, said this about his record-breaking run: “The world seemed to stand still, or did not exist. The only reality was the next 200 yards of track under my feet. The tape meant finality–extinction perhaps. I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well. I drove on, impelled by … Continue reading On Writing, and the Four-Minute Mile
I remember the night I fell for you, our romance and a lifetime of nightlong dreams. The dreams where you whisper so close to me, seeding memories inside my mind. And when I awake I think you are there and reach up to touch you but clutch empty air, then flinch from the gut punch when I know you’re a spirit and gone. I fall … Continue reading Of Love and Moonsweat
Your fragrance often wafts into my head guided by the metaphysical pinings of two souls and the bond between spirits not tethered to temporal moorings. Mortal boundaries span six feet of earthly separation but the heavenly plane exists within our senses. Comforting, that thought, and breathing your scent brings thoughts of your heaven wafting through my mind. For heaven is where you took me taking … Continue reading Of Love and Fragrance
I wish there were more moments to recall, the ones that show us naked and afraid. Instead, I recall our time together as projections of idealized portraits, retouched and photo-shopped by minds unable to bear the sharp edges and blunt-force trauma that lovers stumble through along the boulder-strewn road of romance. I don’t want to recall only the good moments but the ungood moments too, but maybe it’s better that … Continue reading Of Love and Memories
I wrote an essay for this blog a couple years ago about what it feels like to be a military brat and not have a hometown. Other military brats will understand what I mean. I was born in Turkey and lived in several places before Dad finally retired in Tampa. Dad was born and raised in Bradenton, Florida, Mom in Nederland, Colorado; they had hometowns. … Continue reading Hometowns
Just a quick check-in to say hi and apologize for my inattention to your posts. I love your work and take something away from every post I read. Your words and writing inspire me and lead me to aspire to write better. My absence is not without purpose: I’m engrossed in editing my novel, A Wished-For Love, and I’m zooming right along. I feel like … Continue reading Writing is Eternal Life
When I was twelve or so, Dad told me to get off my derrière and earn some money. So, I started pushing the lawn mower around the neighborhood. Thankfully, since we had a corner lot, he’d bought one of those new fangled self-propelled machines. It made it easier, but no less tedious, to mow that forty thousand acre yard in the hot Tampa summer. And … Continue reading Tampa Boy’s First Job
This is a sort of stream-of-consciousness essay. I’m pretty sentimental. Forgive the errors; I’m posting just as I posted it elsewhere. Mr. Linares tried his best to make me enjoy vocational drafting at Tampa Tech, but I hated it and joined the Navy instead. I worked on Navy aircraft for thirty years, both enlisted man and officer. I was stationed on Diego Garcia in the … Continue reading Tampa Boy
I praise you I praise you Let me lie beside you Let me lie beside you I hear the song of your spirit in the wind soughing past my ear; I smell the scent that fills me in the rose that is the vessel and the blessed fragrance in your smile. Your hair is trimmed in golden like the leaves within the Bible, and I … Continue reading I Praise You
Enchanted by the stars, like smelling roses, Anticipating the rush of a meteor flash Or Saturn’s rings in full-on view and Europa, Like Andromeda’s spiral, in ageless lights of time, And my heart pumps a million times a minute When sun bids day adieu amidst a host of glory, And that spinning dance and flash of white That reveals your teeth in brilliant, ecstatic smile … Continue reading Every Night With You
absolution hmmm hhuhhh hmmm hhuhhh bundled and warm cold crisp air stings with each inbreath hmmm hhuhhh tears drawn away by the cold or are they hmmm hhuhhh hmmm hhuhhh muffled but heightened as within the confessional silence descends as Nature dons her alb hmmm hhuhhh a puff of warm air echoing as through a long narrow cylinder … Continue reading Absolution
Ripples in a pond fretting amid damp earth’s fragrance whose deep-anchored tendrils curl around and around and up and up to caress and nurture. Focused on the footpath. Rigid muscles and throbbing temples. Panting. Impeding scales fall away as sunlight breaks through a misty veil of sweat. Pause. Beyond the trees a beckoning forest and a horizon, and mountains soften into hills. Renewal. Gaining the horizon. Footpath … Continue reading Fretting
Myth. Time is a myth. There is no time. When I’m with you Time stands still. Time with you is timeless. But how to communicate The absence of time, The fact of us? I. You. We. One. You are my life, My forever, My sun. I am your moon. You hold me in your orbit. You are my Center. My Universe. My Infinity. You are … Continue reading Your Breath Revive Me
I cut a rose and placed it in a vase. The room became brighter and fresher. The sentence didn’t read right. A different word gave the story new meaning. A boy fell into an epileptic fit. Ignored, until another boy placed a stick between his teeth. The weight of the world breaks my heart. I push the dark away and bask in the warmth of … Continue reading Small Gestures
I feel so much satisfaction watching the word count grow in the little story flowing from my pen. This joyful enterprise, this crafting of a universe built from memories of a lifetime. This imaginary world I have peopled with those I’ve grown up with, played, schooled, worshiped, worked, and served with. Decorated with scenes that have thrilled my eyes and my mind and lifted my … Continue reading My Little Story
It’s that time of year!. Originally posted July 6th, 2014 The leaf from a tree, Brings joy to my heart, Vibrant green, With points like a star, It hangs from the limb, waving at me, O, pretty leaf, what do you see? So live your life like a leaf, Just hangin’ around, And when your time comes, Just leap for the ground, A flying leap, brave and … Continue reading Live Your Life Like A Leaf
An attempt at light, airy lyrics. Hum it to any tune you please, then let me know if it makes you smile 🙂 I was passing by O’Grady’s When you saw me in your glass You smiled without turning And I skipped a little dance You pretended not to notice But you still laughed anyway And I made myself a promise To pass there every … Continue reading My Better Half
In the middle of the beginning of the days of my youth I found you In the moments of the hours of my days when time didn’t matter You took me In the space between the time when caught breath was a whisper I came alive Just a sigh Just a cry Just a why Is all I have of you Nothing mattered then for … Continue reading When Breath Was a Whisper
The rain is come, the day is drear, I must be dreaming of you dear; It’s days like this, I treasure most, Floating echoes of my restless host. When we met, I found my muse, Sheltered by whispered I love you’s; Shrinking from, the spilling clouds, I pulled you from the phobic crowds. Purposeless, and aimless thought, In my arms your love is caught; Your … Continue reading My Restless Muse
Admit it, you love to edit, don’t you? I can see you now as you read through your printed manuscript, coffee cup in one hand, yummy croissant in the other, eyes whizzing left to right as you enter the world of magic you pulled from your storyteller’s mind. Raindrops catch your attention as they patter against the window and merge into a sheet of water … Continue reading On Editing
“Two dead women, a death in Vietnam, and an infant hastily given up for adoption stand between Aida and marriage to Tom, the man of her dreams.” This is the pitch I’m using in the pitch event over at SavvyAuthors blog. The Pitch Event runs through midnight 17 September. You may pitch to both agents and publishers. Continue reading Critique My Pitch: Part Four, A Wished-For Love
“Decades after their tragic deaths, two women haunt the lives of two men broken by grief and a hasty adoption. One of the men finally comes to terms with his loss and finds love again. One cannot.” I didn’t provide a description of my story in previous posts, so I’ve added one here to help you critique my pitch. You’ll note there are two Susannas. … Continue reading Critique My Pitch, Part Three: A Wished-For Love
“Two dead women stand between Aida and marriage to Tom, the man of her dreams.” Thank you to everyone who commented on my original pitch. This is my latest draft. Comments and suggestions welcome! Continue reading Critique My Pitch, Part Two: A Wished-For Love
Critique this! Does this query pitch pique your interest? “Crippled with grief after his fiancée’s death, Tom Nelson shuns love lest he betray Susanna’s memory. When he meets Aida, he finds love again, but will Susanna let him go?” Continue reading Critique My Pitch: A Wished-For Love
In the café, two tables away sat the woman Of my dreams, occupied reading a book; Silhouette in black, turning dog-eared leaves; I noted the dip of Cupid’s Bow, The gentle curve of her nose; The graceful line of her neck made My pulse beat double-quick; Leaning in, one elbow on the table, She lifted her coffee cup. I felt his eyes as I sipped … Continue reading Café of Nerves
Swish, swish, swish, her tail sweeps the air, Shining eyes, she crouches there. Arcing high, the ball flies up, Leaping now, my flying pup. She takes the ball, prances ‘round, Twinkle toes, not earthbound. Come here, girl! but, oh, not she, Away, away, chase after me! Faster, farther, prancing still, She smiles at me, such a pill. Lets me near, then lies down, I come … Continue reading Mai Lee
I lose hope when I spend too much time reading the news. I despair of mankind living in peace and harmony. I despair of the world we are leaving our grandchildren. I gain hope and confidence when I turn off the news. I walk outside and see a world bigger than our differences. My spirits lift and soar when I walk among people and the … Continue reading Apples
I read constantly that editing is hard. No. Editing is not hard. Writing is hard. Editing is tedious. Excruciatingly boring. Gut-wrenchingly, the-sun-is-shining-for-the-first-time-in-weeks, birds-are-singing, optimism-is-everywhere, but-I’m-stuck-behind-this-desk-in-pursuit-of-my-laudable-goal, boring. Oh, look; Gone With the Wind is on TV! Oh, oh, oh! A Gilligan’s Island rerun marathon! Continue reading Editing — A Wished-For Love
Character may falter, but forgiveness never forgets. Continue reading Character
William? Yes, Susanna? Why are people so angry? Why are people so angry? Yes. Why are people so angry? Why do you ask, Susanna? Because, William, I see angry people everywhere, and it hurts me. How does it hurt you? Anger hurts my heart. Why does it hurt your heart? Because anger gets in the way of love, William. It does, Susanna? Yes, William. How … Continue reading Susanna Avila VII
Dark and black, the sky Opened as we walked, Thunder and lightning, We held hands, and Looked for shelter As we ran, We laughed, and Your smile showed the way In the pouring rain. Your laughter, thrilled Me with its song; a Shake of your head sent Wet notes of happiness Arcing, from your long Black hair rainbows of Joy splashed me, and I said, … Continue reading In The Warm Embrace Of A Pouring Rain.
Writers Envy 