When the summer breeze blows warm across my face, I will come to you through the slanting light and watch you paint the picture you said you always would. We’ll capture the moment in a silent instant and hold it for as long as memory serves, untouched by heartbreak, with nothing left to hide, in […]
The carnival is sick freedom, something less, passing through town, barking forbidden desires, promising an untranslatable ticket to the show. Our parents encouraged this. They wanted us to rub up against something different, strange and welcome, but only for an instant, in the blink of an eye. “Love but don’t touch,” they said, “and don’t admit
I’ve spent the last fifty years or so writing songs, performing them, trying to sell them, all without the slightest financial reward. Well, I overstate – back in the early 1980s, I played many paying gigs with a small group, Toy Boat. In 1982, Toy Boat had had two extended gigs at a Westside club
How to Avoid Success Read More »
California is one of America’s leading agricultural-producing states. Losing any of California’s food production would lower the economy and the support of a growing population. However, an increasing problem in California is decreasing soil health, leading to unusable fields. Many causes result in reduced soil health, but the main one seen in the San Joaquin
Restoring the San Joaquin Valley Read More »
I’m smoking, The burning trail choking Deep lungs groping For the nicotine fix It poisons my lips And keeps callers at a distance. My most faithful lover Your smell stays on my lips Long after our last kiss No matter how hard I try keep telling you goodbye You keep coming back And I keep
In Honor of Black History Month Twenty-eight years ago, I landed my first full-time college teaching position at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Originally known as Tuskegee Institute, the school was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881 to provide vocational education for southern blacks in the years after Reconstruction. Washington, born a slave in 1856,
To Till a Field or Write a Poem? Booker T. Washington’s Legacy Read More »