The Desert’s Voice, More Fierce

“Ram’s Head , with Hollyhock” painting by Georgia O’Keeffe Here’s a poem I wrote about Georgia O’Keeffe, after I saw the postcard of her which appears at the end of the post:   Georgia O’Keeffe looks over her shoulder   Just when she thinks she’s painted all her fear, When bleached skulls turn to poppies

Vice and Villains

I’m thinking of the vice of greed.  It’s a key characteristic of so many villains in both literature and real life. Sartre’s play about bad faith, where so much of it is about the lust for power over the other.  One character says “Hell is other people.” Then, there’s the greed for money that drives

In the Frame

The noun “frame” made me think of the murder mystery by Dick Francis, IN THE FRAME. As it’s described in GOODREADS, “Charles Todd—a renowned painter of horses—is shocked when he turns up at his cousin Donald’s house for a weekend visit to find his cousin’s young wife dead on the floor—and Donald the police’s prime

Roadside America

My parents took me to see this “roadside attraction” when I was about 8, and I think we went again one other time. I drove past it on Route 78 in Pennsylvania USA a month ago, and was glad to see it was still open and operating, fifty years later.  And it had probably been there

Learning to Read

A good meditation as school begins. I teach “Freshman Comp” to first year college students. One of the readings with which we begin the year is the passage from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, when he describes how he learned to read, and how important it was to him. Douglass was a slave; the

In the Heaven of Hopscotch

one of my poems: In the Heaven of Hopscotch   It is always two o’clock on a June afternoon School is out And I’m standing in the middle of Gay Street in the broad shade Under a large full, never pruned maple tree, Gay Street near Everhart, in front of a large lawn where Kathy

Seven-faceted eyes

Here’s a poem of mine about eyes: Like the Eyes of Insects   Insects solve the day-night tradeoff with their seven faceted eyes. The fruit fly, even the hated housefly peer into the solution. Like the eyes of an insect, the seven facets of the eyes of God, the seven faceted lamp the caulkers of

Moon Fishing

I love this poem by Lisel Mueller: Moon Fishing When the moon was full they came to the water. some with pitchforks, some with rakes, some with sieves and ladles, and one with a silver cup. And they fished til a traveler passed them and said, “Fools, to catch the moon you must let your

he will walk in, as you’re sitting down to a meal

  The poem below is a ghost poem, to me.  The speaker is at a picnic at home, but he remembers going to camp as a child, and then he remembers the concentration camps of Nazi Germany ( in real life, he was one of the  American soldiers who liberated the prisoners of those camps).And he

i carry your heart

one of my favorite e e cummings poems: i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my