13: The Strategy
1. Advice to young writers: Plug away. Be disciplined and write it down. Listen for the authority of the inner voice that is different than regular thinking. Don’t quit your day job.
2. Each mark is a dream / that tells more than one truth / and believes in the existence / of the next page.
3. For about a second on Sunday morning I thought Trump was going to resign when I read a headline that said “Prez Tells Pals He’ll Exit” but then I scrolled down and saw “the Paris Climate Accord.”
4. When the golden rule cashes in / love doesn’t turn the other cheek / It hangs its head in shame / Turns over in its grave – Read the rest of my latest poem, Grave Days HERE.
5. “People would look so much better without it. Talking to someone with bad plastic surgery is like talking to a man with a bad toupee – you cannot think about anything else.” –Gloria Steinem
6. Will we all end up in dining rooms turned into bedrooms / in hospital beds that our grand kids want to wind up and down. – Listen to me reading the rest of this poem from Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife HERE. Only one more week to pre-order a copy HERE.
7. Is swerve a mutant plural of curve? At the very least it makes sense that they rhyme.
8. I think it’s fitting that my brother John is a fisherman and ‘Holy Mackerel’ is his favorite saying.
9. I recently said ‘Holy Koi’ HERE.
10. I also said, “Are you sure they’re not piranhas?” HERE.
11. “Did I miss any more treason while I was at the gym?” – my Facebook friend Russell
12. Writing a poem is a lot like doing a crossword puzzle where every word used has to have the right meaning and fit and work with the words nearby.
13. When my son Josh was little he thought cats were girls and dogs were boys. _________Thirteen Thursday
June 1st, 2017 5:49 am
Koi pond meditation….my fave.
June 1st, 2017 9:12 am
I still think cats are more feminine and dogs more masculine. Love you poems. You are so talented.
June 1st, 2017 9:52 am
Josh also said when he was little, “Dogs are mean and cats are polite.” And haha, neither you, Tabor, or Ron noticed I had skipped a number, so I just had to add a new line.
June 1st, 2017 11:15 am
Love the chess set.
I used to hate being told to not quit my day job, but have since had to say it a time or two to older new-authors.
June 1st, 2017 11:20 am
fascinating set , of chess figures that is
June 1st, 2017 3:03 pm
Swerving around a curve sounds like what is happening to Trumpty these days.
June 1st, 2017 3:52 pm
Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys are made of. Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.
Or so I was told. But I don’t believe everything I am told.
Don’t quit your day job is very good advice to young writers these days. It is sad advice, but necessary. I hated it when my mother said I would never make a living writing, so I proved her wrong and did it, but I couldn’t do it today, in this changed environment.