I'm 60 years old. I'm 6 feet tall and I weigh 270 pounds. I used to be taller, thinner and younger but was transformed along the way by life and an excessive love of pecan pie. I published a couple of poems in the late 60's-early 70's, then quit writing (except for business writing) for nearly 30 years, as career and family took up most of my time and creative energies. I began writing again when I retired a couple of years ago.

Since then my poems have been published in a number of on-line literary journals, including Tryst, The Muse Apprentice, Alchemy, The ShallowEnd, AvantGarde Times, The Poet's Canvas, Dynamic Patterns, Neiderngasse, Eclectica, The Melic Review, The Green Tricycle, Nectarzine, Experimentia, Planet Magazine, The Horsethief's Review, Maelstrom, Beatnik and others.


poem on a napkin

Starbucks brown
and flimsy,
with little space
for things profound,
instead,
this small memorial
to the moment
our eyes met
and the future
was foretold

photo album

I'd give a year of my life
to have that day again

not my last year,
my drooling-in-the-oatmeal year, not that
mind-blank-body-broke-spirit-gone last year

I'll give that year away for free

no, I'm talking about next year,
while I still have prospects,
next year,
when there might still be time
for a little more rock & roll
under a summer moon,
a little more time for snuggling
on the back porch, watching a winter storm
blow through leafless trees, listening
to the clickity clatter of dry branches,
time for a weekend at the beach,
time to read, time to write,
time for all those things I know
will some day slip away

that's the year I would give up
to live that day again

on your 50th wedding anniversary*

consider the constants of our lives,
the sun bright above

and the moon's pale glove on soft summer nights

consider the sun, shining every day,
feeding life through the gloomiest skies,
bringing warmth in the frozen hours of winter

and the moon, empress of the night,

making her nightly orbit even as we in our slumbers dream,
stirring the deepest oceans, pushing salty tides

over sand-smooth beaches and rugged rocky coasts
across all the spinning expanses of our moon-struck world

and love, the third constant, consider that one too,

for without it we live under a darkened sun,
shorn, like the moon, of our reflecting glory

consider love, when two, like wandering stars,
collide in a nova of creation, becoming first, one,
than many more again, a new galaxy

of dreams with its own potential for re-creation

love,
the balm of every pain and fear

love,
illuminator in every darkest hour

love,
bringer of peace to every stormy night,

love,
richly sown in your youth
reaped as your life's sustenance
through all the passing years

consider always love, true and unremitting,
like the sun that warms you and the moon
that embraces you in the hours of deepest sleep

may you forever be enfolded in its tender grasp

*Dedicated to Dr. Rollin and Mrs. Barbara Sininger. For two together thus,
50 years is as an afternoon in the park.