Friday, March 5, 2021

portmanteau - Google Search

a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel (from ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’) or brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’). "podcast is a portmanteau, a made-up word coined from a combination of the words iPod and broadcast"

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Cues for 100 word stories.

Instead of words as CUES, how about characters? 1. Beautiful, straight, white woman. 2. Black female activist. 3. One studly guy/womanizer 4. One effemintate, gay that wears bowties. 5. One handsome, capable, shy, white guy. 6. One, old, retired professor.

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Quotation Marks. I always forget these rules:

Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks in American English; dashes, colons,
and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks; question marks and exclamation
marks sometimes go inside, sometimes stay outside.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Two, older poems.

A Visit to the UPS Counter

A small machine
in a deep fold
of my brain
lifts each corner of my mouth in turn
and I smile at the pretty woman
behind  the counter.

A whisper
automated
sends a spark to my chest,
and I let go
all the charm
I can muster
as the worm in my groin
stirs, recoils,
from the electricity
of this unfamiliar arena.

A feeling, not unlike
hunger
fear
paints the inside of
my stomach.

Her teeth are
straight and white.
Her eyes reflect
something  from the inside
I’d never seen.

I am validated.

######

Family Gathering

I was picked up
by one leg
dropped hard
onto the middle
of the living room.

I sat there for a long time
looking at the flocked wallpaper.
A lady in a bright, red dress
joined me,
sitting quietly,
expressionless,
staring straight at me
her legs opened in a wide
“V”
her back straight and stiff.

Two little kids and a dog
joined us.
A boy, about ten
a girl, five.
The dog was
solid black.
His mouth was open
as if to bark, but
I couldn’t hear anything,
only the adenoidal breathing
of the little girl
playing
with her doll house
and
creating her own
little family gathering
in the living room of a
tiny cardboard house.

Friday, September 11, 2020

Who Was the Falling Man from 9/11? - Falling Man Identity Revealed

Remembering 9-11 and commemorating the loss of so many souls. This article is hard to read, but is very impactful.


Who Was the Falling Man from 9/11? - Falling Man Identity Revealed: Do you remember the photograph of the falling man? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Snakes of Summer. POEM

All summer I saw them
as they scurried in front
of my whirling mower blades.
Some of them evaded the
metal blades.
The slower ones were halved
and quartered.

The first time this happened,
I was shocked and saddened.
The second time
angry at myself
remorseful
for mowing the fields
I called home
and thought of as my private park.
I made adjustments.

I walked the field with my dog
before I mowed, chasing the
gopher snakes ahead of me to their dens.

These slow moving, diurnal creatures
usually sunned themselves in my field,
readying themselves for active nights
hunting lizards and rodents.

Their prey is suffocated by the
constriction of loops of their
chocolate spotted body, and
then they dine, shyly,
maybe a little remorseful
about what they’ve done.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Abeeku: A poem

 

Abeeku

Abeeku stole a bright, gold watch from
the busy shop in the market.
The shopkeeper
saw him slip the watch into his waistband -
chased him, yelling and gesturing, “?? ,?? 
“ Thief, thief!”
The crowd caught up -
surrounding Abeeku
in the middle of the street.
They beat him.
Someone slipped an old tire over his head,
and another
and another helped
pull the tire over his arms
pinning them to his side.
The shopkeeper picked up the watch
its crystal broken and
its case scratched and split.
He put it on his wrist and
joined the chant, “Thief, thief.”
A boy pressed through the throng
with a tin of petrol,
pouring it over Abeeku’s head.
A shadow offered matches
and Abeeku was covered in flame
at dusk
while the African sky
was ablaze
in red and yellow light.