There are times when it seems life has run out of steam. The space between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is one of them. * * * It’s the week after Christmas, or ‘holiday’ if you’re part of the crowd of alchemists that mix Christmas with Visa and come up with a concoction called Santa. …
Year: 2023
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Isaiah 9:2 * ** The house is quiet. The hectic pace is fading. The cascade of catalogues is easing into digital solicitations. Christmas is nigh. The cell …
The other day I invented a new pleasure. * * * A new pleasure, you say? I hear your rebuttals now. You’re thinking, is there anything new under the sun? Is there anything Google or AI have not conceived? Tell us more. I was sitting around reading lines from a poem by Coleridge, “In Xanadu …
Can anything quite compare to the memories of small-town South Georgia Thanksgivings? * * * Thanksgivings were homecoming events. Family members, like refugees from some vast diaspora, came home again for the annual tradition. Like a pilgrimage to Mecca we came, not that our home town of Colquitt, Georgia is a Mecca, but it has …
Pro forma spreadsheet: An Excel generated financial statement populated with actual and enthusiastic hypothetical financial figures designed to extract money from unsuspecting investors and bankers. * * * Times are good, Bobby is flush with cash. But it is a fire in his pocket, burning hot, needing somewhere to multiply itself. He has an idea. …
Sunny Fall days say, “Slow down,” observe the last of the summer flowers. * * * ‘Slow down’ is exactly what this morning is about. To move any slower would invite rigor mortis to set in. And the quiet Sunday morning porch is a perfect spot for letting nature do the movement. And it’s alive …
O joy! That in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive ! William Wordsworth * * * I’m sitting in the Snip and Clip Hair Emporium, a fancy name for a ‘beauty parlor.’ I’m waiting for my turn for a haircut. It’s weird, sitting in the midst …
And the priest laid his hands upon the scapegoat’s head and said, “Good luck.” * * * It was just a goat, a common variety of goat, no special breeding. The special breeding goats didn’t occupy the common barnyard. They were bred for something different. They grazed across the fence from the manicured and pristine …
Lubrication is a simple solution to the rusty friction of life. Apply where needed. * * * Friction is a fact of life. It’s everywhere. From body joints to nuts and bolts to frozen-up friendships. Things lock up, get rusty. They need a regular lube job. The porch screen door is open. I close it. …
“I write for myself, to save what’s left of myself.” Charles Bukowski, poet * * * Today I spent the morning on the porch, under the fan, reading poetry and hoping the humidity evaporates. Not much luck. But the poetry is good even though Bukowski and many others are dead. Good poetry lives on. It’s …