I feel naked with a week’s worth of posts up and no poetry on the front page. Going into my 3rd week of my Massachusetts sabbatical, thinking about my loved ones back home in Virginia, while munching on blueberries, I remembered this poem. It was written in July 2003 for my eldest son’s 24th birthday. […]
Campsites are like rows of motel rooms with the doors left wide open. Once I ride my bike up and down the park roads – that remind me of motel hallways – and see what my neighbors look like (mostly elderly retirees), I feel much less self-conscious about camping alone. After my ride, I hitch […]
This nearly month-long visit to my Massachusetts home place is not as much a vacation as it is a sabbatical from my every day routine and an exploratory field trip to mark the next half of my life. It’s a test of my independence (and also accepting my limitations), as I find myself adapting to […]
The Gulf Stream veers off somewhere near the coast of New York and makes its way to Ireland. There’s no warming stream to soften the frigid waters in the South Shore of Boston where I grew up. Even so, three little girls are in the ocean this evening playing on two blow-up rafts. One raft […]
It’s amazing how “at home” I feel at the ocean and how comfortable I can make myself when the need for refreshment comes over me. When we were kids, my friends and I wanted to live on the beach. We tried to make fire by rubbing driftwood sticks together to heat up cans of soup […]
AKA: A Magical Day We spent the day in Scituate Harbor, my sister Sherry, her husband, and I. Scituate, Massachusetts, is where part of the 1987 movie “The Witches Eastwick” was filmed. There were 3 witches in that movie, played by Michele Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, and Cher. We went into the Quarterdeck, the funky nautical […]
I can still recall when over 10 years ago a close friend looked me straight in the eye and announced, “I love my Mac.” I turned up my nose and looked at her like she had two heads. Sometime after that, my sister, Kathy, told me that I would love using a computer, once […]
I visit my parents in my hometown of Hull, Massachusetts, about once a year. The room I stay in is on the 3rd floor. There are wall to wall bookcases filled with movie videos and movie posters hanging on the walls It may seem fitting for me as a writer – but it’s not exactly […]
Walking on Nantasket Beach in my hometown peninsula of Hull, Massachusetts, makes me think of my brother Jim. Jim lived in Hull for most of his childhood and all of his adult life. He was an ardent weather enthusiast and a respected member of the local weather community who frequently took photographs at the beach, […]
The ocean is a natural anti-depressant. I like to walk the beach in the evening when the setting sun casts a golden glow. On this night, I found myself smiling upon seeing what I took to be a bride further on down the beach. Her white veil was blowing in the sea breezes. As I […]
Last Sunday, while putting the Museletter together, the monthly local publication that I co-edit, I was looking through my collection of poetry for a few summer-time poems to fill in some empty spaces. Except for a few garden poems, all I could find is the one below, published last year in “Mobius,” which made me […]
I’ve been known to act like “Gidget” while watching fireworks go off. Probably because I ooh and ahh while watching them. I also like to give them names…like these: Pistachio Afro, Snap, Crackle, and Pop, Red Zinnia in a Blender, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Tinkerbell’s Migraine, The Big Bang Theory, Bling Bling, Barbie’s […]
