Sometime back in the mid 80’s, I would  sit in the Boston public library, on the second floor of the “new” section, my papers covering most of the surface of a large table. I was probably doing homework for some class I was struggling with. I would/… Read full post »

This is a repost with some improvement. Consider it in honor of the new school year just beginning. A time that filled me with fear and dread as a child and with bad memories now.

I often hear you when I complain about my students

The… Read full post »

still playing that card, the one I was dealt as a child

worn down but not out

lifting the lantern, looking for the truth

shining a light on nature and watching for what crawls out

better than poking it with a… Read full post »

It was the smell I noticed first

Not just the fishy smell of algae and the earthy smell of old leaves

but the one with the top note of death and the body of absolute corruption

what was it there under the bridge up against the… Read full post »

It was once believed that a leaf falling  into water produced  a fish

Where they really come from is the sea

following the path in the water, left in parts per billion

outswimming things with teeth into… Read full post »

Does this weather make it easier?

Sleeping was seldom difficult

in a chair while in college 

on a subway train

on my back when my leg was in bandages and my knee in tatters

in East coast Summer heat, tortured by mosquitos… Read full post »

It’s not the heat that brings them out

It’s written in the genes no doubt

that’s what the buzz is all about.

A sound like nothing else you’ve heard.

A life’s tale told without a word.

A number, prime, of years has passed,

up fro… Read full post »

You may know that miniaturization of electronic circuits is what makes modern, hand held devices possible. In your lifetime you have seen computers and phones get smaller and more powerful by several fold. Eventually, the limit for circuit dimension set by technology will conve/… Read full post »

The T shirt project Part I, The seventies, wherein I struggle to find my identity but manage to mention my father in almost every description.

I collect T-shirts. perhaps it’s more correct to say that I have  a collection of them because I never throw any of/… Read full post »

This was motivated by the open call for mothers day recipes. It doesn’t contain any recipes but it does have some descriptions of food. The dishes here are the vessels themselves.

The dishes that were the most important were the ones that got used/… Read full post »

An early bloom this year

anxious to get going

new reasons from an old premise

old enough for lichen to take hold

a synthesis of ideas forming on the surface

one word for the color and the scent and the flower and the tree

unbowed

darts of… Read full post »

When your stuff is stolen and you want some compensation for your loss, because that’s what you pay the insurance company for, it becomes your task, your problem, to prove that you actually had some stuff and that it mattered.

In presenting a claim it is the responsibility… Read full post »

Soap bar pickups

top hat knobs

mother of plastic inlay

gold top

sunburst

trapeze tailpiece

the log

Rhubarb Red

overdub

patent applied for

How High The Moon?

The New Sound

humbucker

Jeff, Jimmy, Eric, Duane, Pet… Read full post »

What is modern? Modern classical music is the music of Beethoven. Modern physics is the physics of Schrodinger and Einstein. Modern dance is the dance of Martha Graham. Modern art is 70 years old. We need the term contemporary to describe the art and dance of our time as if/… Read full post »

I was a late comer to Rock and Roll. Because It was what everyone else listened to I had to listen to something else. 40's big band jazz and delta blues was my thing. It wasn’t until I got to college that I started seeking out rock music in all the… Read full post »

I didn’t think that it could get worse than Reagan, telling us that the way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons was to make more of them. That trees caused air pollution. Phoning in his scripted one liners that substituted for speeches. And of course, trading weapons in return for… Read full post »

The Way You Did

Perhaps if I knew you well enough to write a poem I wouldn’t have to write one

Did anyone know you? 

Some thought they did, women mostly, but they were deluded

I only know the parts that I got,

The charming… Read full post »

I am unworthy to take such liberties with Ulysses but someone had to do it.

June 16, 1904, Dublin

Feeling a bit peckish? Tea and toast should hit the spot, for her, of course. For yourself, perhaps a bit of the inner organs of beasts and fowls? Maybe… Read full post »

The robin’s song is different now

It’s not the same one he sang this morning

The notes are the same, it’s the tempo that’s changed 

This is a slower, more deliberate song

Sung with care and purpose

Last year's collards, buried alive, have persisted and grown tall

T… Read full post »

I have a fat cat. Alright, I have two fat cats but one of them is merely plump while the other is FAT! I have had them for one year and for the first time since they came to live with me, took them to a vet yesterday. I’ve put/… Read full post »

Lambie

Sitting by your side at the piano while you played and sang show tunes

Clinging to you as we swam 

I once brought you a bouquet of flowers, one from each of the bushes in the yard that I could reach

You could embarrass me like… Read full post »

I was writing on a chalk board today and the chalk was screeching as it does, giving my audience of three group members fits. One of them, a physics geek grad student, told me that breaking the chalk in half would stop the noise, a trick taught to her by/… Read full post »

1. Constant entropy tends toward minimum energy

2. Constant energy tends toward maximum entropy

3. I’ve been inside (with scuba gear) the giant ocean tank at the New England Aquarium

4. I climbed Ayers Rock on my 25th birthday

&nbs… Read full post »

This is motivated by a translation of the Massachusett word Wichagusscussett, as "The place at the edge of the pouring out". Roughly meaning, the place by the estuary. This is the name of the land between the two estuaries, the Fore River and the Back River that border on Weymouth, Quincy,… Read full post »