Vive le Salon!
This piece was first published in 2008. Throwback Friday! The Art Salon takes the art dialogue away from the exhibitionism of the public square, back to the privacy of personal circles, even the intimacy of the home. Salons first became popular among the nobility of 17th century Europe as a time when the comtesse and her girlfriends got together to hear about things that mattered - in the salon, their equivalent o...
Tiny Poetic Vessels
“That was epic!” This is what contemporary teenagers often exclaim after experiencing something impressive, whether the epic in question is a blockbuster film, a huge fantasy novel, a multi-state road trip, or a resounding crash by an accident-prone friend. From the Greek epic to the haiku, the tragic drama to the sonnet, poetry has spanned the history of literary scope as well as of social and linguistic c...
The American in Me
The American in me drives a Chevrolet, spells carborator however he likes and purposely leaves the grease in his skin. The American in me is more muscular, talks loud shit with the boys and drinks beer because he likes it. The American in me smells right, like wood chips, cigarettes and sweat and his wife likes two out of three. The American in me votes ardently, carries the political history of his f...
Standing Stones
The wall of stones marches on, straight as an arrow into the infinity of forest. It does not care for tree or trail, for it was here before their birth. It stands as a mark of Adam's dominion flowing through New England farmers' veins. Like human bulldozers they wrestled with stone to make an altar to private property and agriculture, their own immovable polit...
Daisy
“…any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde…” John Donne The blank page beckons like the first cut with the scalpel— tremulous, uncertain, unknown. How does one eulogize the unknown? We walked in silent that first day— death replaced—diluted with chemicals sterilized and fixed, but still present. I caught myself resting my hand ...
Laundry at Dawn
The peach pink clouds lying across the day’s new blue are the clothes we washed together last night— one load, button downs and my green dress. They smell like that lemony detergent you pulled down, white sides slick with soap. I pretend that they smell like you. Where they touch me, you touch me. And now, at sunrise, they’re hanging in the sky— whites stained soft pink by your new red...
Orion’s Belt, My Hips
It is the first day of 2012. What are you afraid of? Last night I cried and said out loud I didn’t expect I’d still be waiting tables at the same restaurant I was at 6 years ago. What changes in the heart? Where is solitude? Who makes the body pure? What soulish fiend am I? Always hungry for the escape, the deeper inside to get away from reality. Who said reality was where anything ...
