Texas Observer Grants My Wish

I submitted a poem to Texas Observer just after the first of the year and got an email, a sweet email, saying the editor loved all five of my poems but could only publish the shortest. It wasn’t until I received the magazine (and a check!) did I realize why. The poem took up 2/3’s of the page. It was great seeing my name in such big print. I’m humbled at what they produced, and proud.

Although money for writing such things will not get me into a mansion anytime soon, but I am very grateful they felt it was worthy…

Cowtown, Texas 1975 is in my new book, My South By Southwest: A Cast Iron Recollection

Take A Walk With Me

Something Which Doesn’t Belong

It was spring, 1989, four of us friends
decided to make it a Florida vacation.
We booked a beach condo with
an extravagant golf course veranda.

We felt decadent on our borrowed patio,
watching sea gulls pelt us in hunger
more attention than the morning downpour.
Bird poop is supposed to be good luck.

Snorkeling in the overcast afternoon,
meant sunscreen lathered on,
don’t rub the red spots intensely, repeat.
Breathe in slow, and relax underwater.

We each laughed as we dived in
and out of the ocean with vigor. Our fins
flapping like adolescent whales.
Waves slapped us towards a reef.

Heather, and I stretched our sea legs,
leaving the others to shrink in
the distance as sand moved, oblivious
through a larger hourglass.

I saw a small conch in my path,
neglectful I placed it in my jacket pocket.
We were all trinkets under the blanket
of the densely black clouded sky.

Did the small crab, collapsed on my salon perch,
drawn to the sounds of boundless frenzy, drape
itself over the deep salmon edge, with six possibilities
of escape to a water-less landing, scream

“I’ve died, and gone to hell in a hand basket!”