Where I (Wish I Could) Write

A Writer’s Dream Room

The photo featured here…well, it’s beautiful. Isn’t? It’s a reader’s/writer’s dream. Perhaps one day I’ll have a room like this in my house, a room with dark brown, leather chairs, shelves heavy with old books, a fire place, and most of all, a room draped with a silken quiet. Yes, there I could read, and write, and think, but I don’t have a room like that.

Yesterday, I started a poem in a local karate dojo, where my son is taught karate. Kids were everywhere: noise, noise, noise. And I was sitting on a plastic chair – no brown leather. And I couldn’t find the glow, the warmth of a fire – or a fireplace for that matter. Still I wrote anyway, the first few words of a poem. I saw my son smiling. I watched him diligently punch this and chop that. He was happy. That made me happy. It made me warm. Guess my dream room can wait.

Below are the words I spoke of, the first words a new poem crafted in a karate dojo. In the poem, my new book’s protagonist, writes about waking up after killing a Confederate soldier, killing him brutally, and after being injured himself.

The Ache of Light

September 3, 1861

When my eyes opened again,
light draped over me like an ache;
it soaked through skin, into bone
and caught fire.

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Writing Challenge: Phone Poem

I admit it. I failed this challenge. It was offerred on poet Adele Kenny’s blog, The Music In It. I was challenge to write about a phone. If you read on, you’ll discover there is no phone in my poem. There was, but the poem didn’t like it; therefore, I removed it. I never disobey the poem. It’s smarter than I am.

To the Book Seller

I thought of you today as I passed your shop,
imagined you settled on a stool behind the counter –
your hands spread the wings of a new volume
of old poetry: Whittier or Longfellow. The scent

of crisp paper warms a moment like a coffee
liberating heat – yours a blend of cinnamon,
two splashes of whiskey. Each book remains attentive,
in its place – a silent company. Each covets your attention,

your fingers to scrape the edge of pages, the stiff line of its spine.
A young lady, her hair still damp – an afternoon’s
light rain – cradles Kerouac and Nabakov. Excuse me,

she asks, which do you prefer?  That depends, you say.
Will you be pouring red wine or white?  Her eyes - as green as spring.

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Memorial Day 2011

“Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal
background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and
it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books.” – W.
Whitman.

Thanks to all the men and women who saw the “interior of war” and were
denied the opportunity to share their tales. You are all heroes. Although I
do not know your names nor do I know your faces, I shall never forget
you.