Seeing Red in Downtown Cincinnati
When the Opening Day parade for the Cincinnati Reds 2022 season snaked through downtown Cincinnati more was going on than it might at first seem.
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‘The Difference Is’
There is a difference / between people who do things / and people who don't ...
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‘RUN-ON SENTENCE: At 47’
I am 47, the day is Jan. 2, the year is 2005, / my beard is stained white in several places, / my son is 14, my girl 10, my (borrowed neighborhood) / cat is named Mister Puzzlesocks, / my favorite red wine of the moment is / Trinchero Cabernet, my car is a white ’93 …
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‘Dirt & Bourbon’
My ink-stained hands hear the/ sound of the railroad, another train / passing through my town, here/ at the middle of nowhere &/ everything. I am ready to burst/ open like a cherry tomato/ between your teeth …
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Categories
Poems
‘In Need of Saying’
I am on a porch, captain/ of a green ocean. Wasps patrol / the boundary lands. In whispering winds, conversing / in high tulip poplars, I hear / poems from another tongue …
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Listen to an “Appalachian Round”
The song "Appalachian Round" is one of the prettiest, most evocative group songs in the English language. Here is a 2009 four-part harmony version a bunch of fellow travelers and I recorded down in Princeton, WV.
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Categories
Essays
‘TIME FOR A POEM, No. 1’
Do not deny the urge, do/ not let the chance for a poem/ pass you by. It’s OK, it’s wholesome / and nutritious, go ahead …
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‘Unfamous’
I decide to be famous / only to myself. It is / so much easier and my / tender, so lightly bruised / ego now thanks me for this / demilitarized zone …
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‘Something for Nothing’
I want to see / if it is possible / to be a nobody / from nowhere. / Creating something / out of nothing …
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‘The Cow Bell’
A great grief saddles me,/ rides down the pampas of / Virginia Dare Avenue, / until I am too tired / and we return home / together ...
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Categories
Essays
‘Mission Statement’
‘To scratch the page,/ to pick the scab, / to mix and match the phrases, / enter the lab and whip up potions, / address the sky with curses, praises, / annoy the authorities, cause commotions …’
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Categories
Poems
‘Earth Mother Lullaby’
Wrinkle-skinned earth mothers from / another decade, a far more interesting decade they profess, / nest live orchids in tangled-up hair, / black-cotton gloves rising past thin wrists ...
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‘Sunlight & Coffee’
I want to run and embrace/ this tulip-yellow light. But/ where? Where do I stand and/ meet it all? Face to face with/ beauty bigger than myself, I / quail ...
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When the hummingbirds fly
When an audio clip arrived in our 'in-box' from a buddy, Joel Preston Smith, featuring a live recording of hummingbirds dive-bombing his feeder in rural Liberty, WV., wings a-whirring, we asked if we might illustrate it with some action-packed hummingbird video
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“Sonata for Piano & West Virginia, No. 1”
I invite you to take five minutes from feeling harassed by the news or our own hectic heads for "Sonata for Piano & West Virginia No. 1." It offers another way of looking at West Virginia and those parts that remain uncorrupted, fresh, and true.
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