Rose colored hallways

quiet and alone
times my mind roams memory's
rose colored hallways
idle thoughts walk there
holding close recall's warm cloak
against winter's breath

Don't need more parking lots

did I misplace it
or did some one erase it
my pretty drawing
of many colors
tried to pave it over for
one more parking lot

I ride the dragon

cross night's black velvet
I ride upon the dragon's
back of golden scales
fiery breath my guide
shooting star to those below
mythic tale begins

It's the journey

no destination
is the key it's the journey's
steps from me to me

Taste of rain

taste it on the air
the mother's ungent perfume
even deep in dream

smell earth newly damp
by rain fall on parched brown ground
grass and flowers sleep

Lead is gold

necromancers
knew lead's atoms gold's too
belief is the thing

This old shirt

once new this old shirt
frayed but still a favorite
weave of memories

sand between my toes
cabo sun and moonlit nights
perfect summer love

Seasons come and go

simple notebook pen
soliloquy on the page
journal diary

a day once removed
to march cadence on blue lines
fill each empty page

siphoning angst hurt
experience clears the mind
for new adventure

summer’s page turned
winter now takes center stage
spring waits in the wings

Golden autumn rain

aerie, eyrie, perch
leaves float on unseen breezes
I sit pen in hand
wanting to capture
it all on the page but words
cannot hold the wind

My aerie is my place on the second floor of a 4-plex located in a colorful Southside neighborhood.  It is a small town within the larger town that is Birmingham.  My studio/office has a view of the street below.

I write here, paint here and yes sometimes I just watch the parade of life below.  My desk sits in front of a window, so I can ignore the mess as I work and look out at the view.  My view is a large tree whose branches are a stone’s throw away where birds come and stare at me as much as I stare at them.

The street below is quiet with the occasional. Squirrels run from neighborhood cats; occasional joggers run by morning and evening, young children and university students come and go from school, cars leave for work in the morning and come home in the evening

From my aerie, I watched the leaves, a golden yellow rain fall in flurries from the tree out front.  Nature parades past my window, seasons come and go, rain, snow,  trees go from barren to green to a rain shimmering autumn leaves carried on the wind leaving them bare once again.

No words of mine can do them justice.  Catch the rain and the wind, try without end.

I'm walking again

9 days to NaNoWriMo.

"Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?"
     -Walt Whitman - Song of the Open Road

Today is Monday and I'm grateful to be off on Mondays.  I'll have four 3-day weekends in November to write fast and furious to make up for the days I know I might fall short.  I've no doubt I can make it to 50,00 words, but it's hard to keep up momentum after a draining day at work.

That's why I mostly write in the morning after my walk.  Walk - Yes I'm finally back to walking in the mornings.  Not the 5 miles that was my habit, but first 1 then 2 now 3.  I didn't think my knee would ever recover it's previous strength after the meniscus surgery, but I'm back.

That fresh air fix on these newly brisk mornings of early Fall do amazing things for me and my writing.  I carry a small pad and pen in my pocket, because Walt was right - ideas seem to fall from the trees.

NanoWriMo Looms

ready or not, 'tis here
that 10-day panicked home stretch
to NaNoWriMo


Yes, I'm in again.  November is National Novel Writing Month, and I've given it my best shot since 2004. The objective is to finish a decent draft of a novel - 50,000 words in 30 days, 1667 words a day.

I've done it before, I can do it again.  Granted the first 6 years I spent literally rewriting 3 novels from scratch: 1) "The Fall", a 2012 story leading up to and through the prophesied cataclysm of 2012 and how we survive thanks to the the planning of the wiccan community; 2) "Seti's Chronicles", the matriarch of a wiccan family's history of the the aftermath of 2012 and our survival; and 3) "Murder is a Primary Color", fast forward to a future world and witches in the main stream - sort of a 'bewitched meets Sam Spade wanna be police detective and solve supernatural and other crimes.

The temptation is there to pull one of the old faithfuls out again, but not this time.  I'm going to upload those to Amazon and put them on sale for $2.99 - NY didn't want them, but who knows, someone might.

Meantime, I'm racking my brain for new ideas.  A few come to mind, but I'll probably decide at the 11th hour.

I write my first drafts by hand, so I'm loading up on my 5x8 Cambridge Limited  black spiral notebooks, and refills for my favorite PC pen.  Transcribing late at night to word, I find adds several hundred extra words and produces a second draft.

I need a title, a topic, something - I'm putting that to my subconscious for the next couple of nights. 

Warm cold night

faded silk pjs
warm me this first cold fall night
wind blown leaves still cling

I hear their rattle
beyond the open window
left in summer's wake

Back to square one

simply put called back
to square one taking with you
all lessons hard won

armed and ready to
begin again this time my
reach higher and so

hopefully is my gain

Golden morning

​golden morning kissed her body
redolent amidst twisted satin
startled from deep sleep she
clings desperately to some great truth
lying just at the other side of dream
.

Can you hear it

she hears what we don't
a different drummer's beat
lost to us not her

Voyeurism

ever feel sad when you finish a book
so much so that you open it back up
and begin to read it again? I do
is real life so dull that i must climb between the pages of a book
and re-visit this new cast of characters/friends? Yes and no.
a ready-made group of friends
worlds far removed from mine
that I can visit at will - that's the draw

Selective hearing

words hurled like weapons

harm only if accepted

dismissed powerless

hard but best to hold

tight to the good things you hear

else the soul suffers

The fall - 2012

​for one frozen moment ever etched
into her being, Seti paused
it was as if the Earth stood still
and caught her collective breath and
no wind stirred the trees, no bird sang

people all along the walk stopped
all the birds lifted to the sky
the earth heaved day rent asunder
terror chased cold then hot the heels

of frightened people running blind
​streets rippling gray waves neath their feet
rubbled surf pounding them into
the gaping maws of asphalt caves

buildings fell into themselves spewed
life and death ​Seti and Kiri
rose met eye to eye and mind to mind
no longer stood in the park but
in the marble hall of the School

Storms coming

the clouds in turmoil
dark fingers reaching for earth
fragile flowers quake

No end in sight

the fall comes but not the end
like nature something survives
barren trees again have leaves
rivers run neath desert sands
fall to winter yields to spring

Words and flame

​we laid the altars
gathered in circle cast words
calling down the moon

elements each their
own direction power rides
every word and flame

2012 Poleshift

earth – its third motion
aperiodic third move
over balanced spills us all
the wyse prepared us
against barbaristic lapse
prophet's twenty twelve

Gentle bonds

I would like to leave
walk or drive but I cannot
because she cannot
I would run away
but I must stay gentle bonds
like bands of steel bar
my way unbroken
porcelain doll midst it all
at long last she sleeps

When do you let go

outside my aerie
the tree holds tight its withered
leaves loathe to face frost’s
bitter bite unclothed
unbecoming rags belie
her grace hold no warmth
deny the natural
order of nurture for spring
usurped by a shroud

Breaking bread

breaking bread sharing
table conversation drink
all arms laid aside
a moment of truce
contemplating a lifetime's
possibilities

Simple magic

magic quantum threads
woven by hand mind and soul
believe and you are

Write away the day

how does one write away a day?
wine running warm in my veins
wandering from room to room
touching the embroidered duvet
on the futon that is my bed
glance and smile at the flickering candle
on the small altar in the corner of my room
the cat who sits on the stool beside me
knows life times nine and shows
no outward quaver
life surfs on

Vicarious Life

we drank and drank sought
oblivion but none came
nor euphoria nor
altered plane
just

a steady numbing yet i
heard it all and saw
it all missed not
a single
thing
he was indeed a poet of
no mean proportion
a short-lived van
gogh of
words
bent to self-destruction on
his path to knowing
no mouth just lips
a line drawn
thin
lids distort the sound of eye
crepe covers brittle bones
dry laughter dying
hardly heard at
all
times i wonder why we bother
what is the draw spoken raw
pleasure pain parallel of
love and hate vicarious
life
do we want too much to feel or
taste anything that we take up
everything so greedily we
chase the siren’s
call

Write a Novel in 30 days...

Fifty thousand words
written in thirty days time
pen at the ready.

The National Novel Writing Month site went live earlier today.  I'm registered, of course.  

Call us masochists, writers have that streak, but every year at 12:01 a.m. November first we log on by the thousands and commit to write our 'great American novel' or at least 50,000 words towards that end.

It's an amazing challenge, and very many of us get through and beyond 50,000 words.  Some continue to edit after November 30, and a rare few persist and actually find their way to a published book.  

Those few inspire the rest of us, to come back each year with fresh ideas and go at it all over again.  Hope springs eternal.

50,000 words in 30 days; that's  1667 words a day.  It's doable folks. I intend to use 30 days of my countdown for my nanowrimo novel.  

NanoWriMo.org
Excerpt of my 2011 Novel

Fall's Golden Rain

I noticed the leaves
this morning as I journaled
every breeze blew their
golden yellow rain
past the sill of my aerie
glad rags to mourning

In the beginning

I was there with the first myth makers and monks who made up your stories.  - Rilke's Book of Hours



I believe that’s true
I was there then, before, since
At one with I am