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Mash Note Dept. : Sei Shōnagon
I am a keeper of lists. I’m not alone in this practice, but it seems to me the making of lists is one of those habits you either do with glee or do out of necessity. Writers tend to crave the intimacy...
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Autumn In Texas
The sound of one dog barking outside, as if to hear himself think. A happy new sweater on an old friend, both seen at the grocery store. And the conversation that follows the wearing of...
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Winter Holidays
Cheery Red Lipstick: Migrating To A Forehead Near You Hearing a selection from Vince Guaraldi’s “Charlie Brown Christmas” at the beginning of December. Then, listening to the whole thing at home on...
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Merry; Not So Bright
The last one standing wins. This list/ list-poem is an homage to one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, Michael Ondaatje. His poem is called “Elimination Dance,”** and is based on...
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Friday Morning
Smash, bang, awake. The slow-to-quick breath awareness of new daylight. The sound of dogs’ feet pattering purposefully down the hall to investigate my waking yawn. That cool first drink of water,...
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Blue
Ink that’s so dark blue it flirts with turning black on the page as you write. The stiff feel of new denim, especially the type used to make carpenter’s trousers. The blue sound stiff denim...
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Taming the Fire
The plate that fumbles from your fingers, pauses mid-leap, before dashing into a thousand porcelain commas on the kitchen tile. That brief moment of sadness for the plate that is no longer a plate....
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The Telephone : A List
The sure, clear sound of the phone ringing at the exact time you were expecting an important call. Most telephone conversations that one had as a teenager, especially the kind where one is...
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V
The strange pleasure of noting that the word violet, a color that seems demure but is often quite spicy, and the word violent, a multi-tool adverb, adjective and verb that packs a punch...
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The Red Balloon Will Hold Your Hand (A List)
Any song that moves you to drum your fingers with abandon in a public place. Swaying and drumming is as pretty as a red balloon. Watching the rocking side-to-side dance of any child under the...
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No Strangers Here (A List)
Today, I will remember and forget a dozen times that I do not know any strangers, merely friends I have not met yet. You will approach me in the parking lot this morning while I am not...
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In Your Image, Jolie Laide (A List)
Beauty is a mathematical construct; it is the miraculous golden mean ripped right from the glossy page. And if you are not built from this statistical improbability, you must consider other charms,...
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Across Texas in a Day (A List)
At first, you listen to music and you chat and you eat snacks and there is so much to hear and say and see. It is morning. The first silence settles in as Hill Country cliffs tumble upward to...
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Ice (A List)
Boxes of water floating in your tea. Winter peering in the window, leaving crystal fingerprints on the glass. Slivers of mercy for those who shiver from heat. Glass-eyed water dreaming...
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Words (A List)
Those good words you say in the right order with a true heart, run clear and even as water dripping from the corner of the porch after a spring rain. The bad words you bite back taste as rancid...
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What You Cannot Have (A List)
The word you seek, the weird one, the one you never use? You know the one. It describes the thing. That does that… thing. Well, you cannot have it. The just-the-right-color orange wool...
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Eating the Thesaurus (A List)
Your breath is perfumed with language. Words eke out when you exhale. I stand near you and smell the saltiness of consonants and the sweetness of vowels. I dream one night that...
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Feeling Your Way Through A Newly Darkened Room (A List)
This is what it is like— every time. A question will come to you— a question without an easy answer. It will flit past your eyes like a large black moth. But, you must catch it...
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Smash. Cut. Swagger. (A List)
During a Q & A with a famous choreographer at a cultural center in big city, a woman asked, “Isn’t art healing?” Famous Choreographer leaned forward. His folding chair squeaked....
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Run Deep and Rise
It rained, today, for ten minutes, downtown. Heat and humidity conspired for an afternoon to create a veil of dense, warm air around our heads. We walked in murky clouds. The pressure built...
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