Monday, October 26, 2015

Welcome to The Vagrant Day: My Poetry Blog

I just never know where inspiration will come from, but it most often comes from experiences and emotions. I invite you to comment on my work. I am interested in how others feel about my poems. Share your thoughts.
Fishing with my Father, 1970


He’d have a Pall Mall hanging loosely from his lips,
his eyes squinted tight behind sunglasses.
That habit he had of moving his head to the left
to shake back the sun-bleached hair that fell
from a side-ways part. Old dark green
boat shoes on his feet, holding the bamboo pole.


1970, probably. I can remember how it felt
to be small and unknowing. This man
who was everything good and true,
bigger than the sun, wider than the water.
His instruction so tender and slow,
taking the worm, baiting my hook.


My father, squatting behind me,
his tanned hands placed over mine so tiny,
we cast the line into the quiet lake.
Promptly impatient, I needed his steady
slowness to keep me still until
we had a tug, a heavy signal from


underneath where it was always dark.
Then dad pulled hard and the bamboo bent.
Out of the water sprang a mid-sized fish.
Dad was smiling, so I smiled back, until
he removed the hook and threw the creature
in a big red plastic bucket behind.
My, even then, poetic soul was thrown.


Panicked by the death of anything living,
I remember begging and crying, “Throw him
back! He can’t breath!” And my father laughed.
That made me cry more because it broke
my heart. But he saved my fish.
Shaking his head at my silly indulgence.


That was the conflict that lasted a life.
My father intolerant of my different way of
being a human being--someone beyond his
self-imposed, limited scope that meant fatherhood.
Where did my poetic, vagabond soul come from?
I know your paintings and I  have your jazz albums.


As I age, my face is more yours.
My one-liner sarcasm comes from your habit
made mine. Sometimes I catch myself clenching
my jaw, holding it all in just like you. And as my
beauty and health start packing, I recognize your pride
pulsating through the pronounced veins I got from you.


Monday, October 19, 2015



A Modern Response to Euripides’ The Medea


Jason messed with the wrong Corinthian
in that ancient play about the dangerously
pissed off Medea, the “X” of your nightmares.
Jason starts knockin’ boots with Creon’s
daughter, a genuine princess with a royal
bank account balance. Jason up and leaves
Medea and his own babies behind to
marry that spoiled brat of a princess so
he could hook it up with King Creon’s
power and financial means of success.
Well, the shit started gettin’ real when Medea
set the plan in motion to take out the royalty
and her own two boys of tender age to boot.
That girl was straight trippin’--wouldn’t hear
anything the sisters had to say bout
doin’ the right and ladylike thing.
Medea was straight out of her head when
she poisoned the princess and the king,
and murdered her own flesh and blood--
those two snot-nosed little boys with smart mouths.
Then, just to make sure those missing marbles was a lost cause,
she scooped up the kids’ dead bodies
and took them with her to God knows where
just so that rotten Jason couldn’t have ‘em.
Lord, if that ain’t a revenge tale for the ages.
Chicks and dudes been lovin’ each other to death
since at least 431 B.C., huh?
That’s some crazy ass shit right there.”

Monday, October 5, 2015

The Moment

The young woman stood
with wind blown hair
her makeup running down
the hollowed cheeks
behind her opened mouth
that quivered silently
under shattered eyes
full of blame
for someone
already gone.

Poem for Nick Drake

Poem for Nick Drake


Strange that I’d never heard
the haunting words you wrote.
Not once had I reveled in the
darkness found between the notes.


I think I have been in your room,
stood at the round window you had there.
I’ve gazed, misty across the meadows
that felt the weight of your thoughtful stare.


I see you were one not sad, but sick
the gloom that consumed you organically grown,
while your light long fingers danced on strings
words and melodies were born straight from bone.


My soul knows you, Nick, as a quiet man.
Your laughter comes from another room.
Your sadness comes close now with each careful word.
I find you everywhere now, like the moon.

Your Face Reminds Me

Your Face Reminds Me


Your face reminds me of lines I need to write.
Your lips speaking poetic words about this world
we visit when it’s just us two.
In the room where love came to find us long ago.
I was so far from anything relevant
and you were very bitter like strong coffee.
Late afternoons, the sun slanting in through the blinds--
stripes on the lined shelves of literature.
A place where all else falls away, unnecessary.
Pushing the papers and opened books aside,
sudden lust was a visitor we welcomed.
Pleasure had to be restrained there,
kept quiet as a shameful secret we shared.


What do I miss the most?
The urgency.
I miss the urgency.