I wrote this poem after deliberating if The Word: A Festival of the Spoken and Written Word: Celebrating All Voices should be canceled--due to the rain storm close approaching. Rita M. Monte and Peter V. Dugan and I, deliberated for over a week, visiting alternative...
As Nassau County Poet Laureate, I am often asked: “What is your process?” I am a morning page writer, and I have learned that my tendency to wake up and write down my thoughts, is not unique. I have spoken of it before. But as a...
Often my dreams spark a poem. In this case, a being presented himself in my dream. I asked who he was and he said he was ‘a relic of an angel’. A relic is all that is left of something or the bones of a...
Many people in the 1930's and 40's shared and taught others about our nation's labor struggles through music. Singer-songwriters like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were some of the original talking blues troubadour-bards. In my estimation, this is heartland American-made spoken word and it became a...
I wrote this poem some time ago after realizing how very lucky I was to have a sisterhood of women that surrounded me who all brought me great joy and always gave great advice. Alongside it a photo from my affirmation ceremony. It's one of my...
Sometime in the late 90’s, in a Florida café, I attended a poetry event with my friend and artist Kiki Calafell. Kiki and I began talking about the loss and death of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1996. We discussed the national...
Somewhere on Northwest 21st when browsing was breathable without a mask I hid behind marigolds and ivy shielding my body from the frame my serendipitous smile as the camera clicked shadowed my body shame that girl on NW 21st walked up and down that stoop unconscious to the knowing this girl would EVER change her lens Now my serendipitous smile is all I see...
Moon Watching We sat next to moon watchers, on beach benches listening to Shattered, scattered echo From the Beach to Point Everyone sang along knowing someone, somewhere is recitin’ em’ in their rockin’ chairs. “She bo ba… bitin’ the big apple” And we watched the moon, over the band shell listening to scattered, Shattered bouncing from the...
What Words Diverge in My Soul? What roads diverge in my soul, of love and desire. To travel on a wooded road, to make camp and read poetry by a warm fire. I've told people I'm a counselor, a craftsman of words. But who is it that really knows me, when alone, in the...
Love Poem Let me gently hold your heart blowing warm air into it like a burning fire, stoking the lingering burnt embers that lay beneath your sole. As I fan the heat inside you you'll taste my sweet air, feeling it surround you with clarity and light. And as you grow in warmth for me your...