Month: April 2013

Second Coldest Spring on Record

According to the papers, that is. The upshot is the boating season here on Lake Erie has been slow to start. We were going to finish getting The Betty Jane ready for launching today but the rain will delay us. We aren’t the only ones affected by the cold, damp weather. Most of these shrink-wrapped…

Poem: 5th Street

5th Street After art history, the widow drove me to my slum studio. Its only north-facing window overlooked the vacant lot where I saw a shootout my first night there. Barely 30, they hadn’t suspected her husband’s bad heart. Dying, he had betrayed their now backward-pointing future. We hung there, our hollow faces reflecting the…

Good Grief—it snowed yesterday!

Yep. We had a twenty-minute white-out squall yesterday morning, April 20th! Granted, all the snow was gone by the afternoon, but this is the latest I remember it snowing. And today it’s windy and COLD! Even Buddy, our Silky Terrier, was hesitant to approach the shore. Here he is screwing up his courage to walk…

Poem: The Thing She Said to Me

The Thing She Said to Me The poets and rockers didn’t go beyond Avenue A, where the poverty was unromantic. My fifth-floor walk-up (Ave. C and 9th) looked over the rooftops of Manhattan, to the sea beyond. Floating above the world, the carnival-lit World Trade Center tethered me every night. Around the corner, the heartless barmaid…