Impulse

I can be terribly impetuous. If something gets in my head I often feel the need to jump on it that minute. Finding people on the Internet, for me, has become something of a game. Online searches helped me find an old boss, a co-worker from my restaurant days and a favorite male cousin who had been missing from our family for thirty-eight years. Most recently, I found my friend “Trini” who shared in my life when my first daughter was born twenty one years ago.
Impulse takes hold when a phone number pops up during my investigations. The next thing I know, I’m on the cell phone dialing to see if the sought-after answers the other end of the line. Sometimes it’s a dead end. But not this time.
I reached Trini’s father and re-introduced myself (I’d met him once) and after making sure he was the father of my friend, I gave him my number and asked him to please pass a message along to her. He said he would...

(this story is part of a larger article called Blast from the Past. If you are interested in purchasing please post a comment to the author.)

Hurricane Blues, The Book

For those of you who read the journal entries when I went on my missions trip, you may understand why this book is near and dear to my heart. The poem I wrote is called Sweet as King Cake. After the book is published in October, I may post the poem here. Until then, I wanted to share with you my first anthology publishing experience. If you all buy copies I will gladly sign them if you wish.
Until then, two Haiku:

Storm Sister Threads

Family ties bindRoots run deeper than water
Dirty washed emptiness

Bleeding your pain
Packing your past, crumbled walls

Bagged, placed by the curb.

Hurricane Blues is an anthology of previously unpublished poems dealing with hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the many effects they've had on the nation. This collection includes the works of various contemporary poets, including:
Mark Jarman
Linda Pastan
John Kinsella
Colleen McElroyJulie (M******n) Ocean
Stanley Banks
Walter Bargen
Nicole Cooley
Steve Dalachinsky
Malaika Favorite
Bob Hicok
Maureen Seaton
Ryan Van Cleave
All proceeds from the sale of this title go to
hurricane relief. To order:http://www6.semo.edu/universitypress

Questions for My Saviour

Can I be both good mother good wife and not split loyalties?
We want to do your will, but where? I want to help, but I don’t know how.
Will you give my husband a great life, a break through, a blessing, a key?
A new direction, a new dream, countless smiles and joy?

Will you lead us though we trip, stumble and fall?
If we wait, pause too long or stop, will you always stretch out your hand?
Will you wait while we get up, if we bleed, if we limp?
If we don’t quit, but drop to our knees will you carry us?
Will you renew the lame, maimed and profaned?

Will you send encouragers, revive me, breathe into us, tether us to you?
Will you keep singing over us a beautiful song when our hearts break?
Will you pour hope, deepen faith, grow our trust?
Can you use all the tears, disappointments and hurts?
Please make your presence felt, increase your love, rescue us.

One Nation Under GOD

Where were you five years ago today? www.ohiofallenheroes.org

ONE NATION: Part One

I had just poured a steaming hot cup of strong coffee in my favorite mug (the one with sunshine and blue skies) getting ready for a typical day in our cool, new digs. Only twenty minutes before, I had been asleep in the new loft bed that a friend and I had built to make a better use of space in a closetless half room.
` Clay pots for the Empty Bowls hunger project awaited glazing in the studio, when the phone rang.
` “Have you been watching the news?” Sue asked. This certainly didn’t typify my usual wake up call. Mind fog made waking up pretty tough. It’s me the artist, are you kidding? Not a fan of the tube because of sensationalism in the news. I’m too sensitive get too depressed. Up until today, I enjoyed blissful ignorance.
` “No, why?”
` “Someone just hit one of the Twin Towers. Two other plane crashes were reported this morning and one missing out of Cleveland. They think they’re all linked.” Who are they? I marvel at the speed with which news makes its rounds, not absorbing the premise. It’s Tuesday, for Heavens sake. She must have heard wrong… but she’s always careful, never delusional, not overly emotional or easily sucked in. This was my fearless, strong friend, logical, linear don’t-jump-to-conclusions Sue. She sounded more panicky than I had ever heard her… Is this really happening? ...

(This article was originally written in two parts and is available for purchase full length. If you are interested, please leave your comment information in the comment box. It will not be published.)

Hit and Run a Year Later

I talked to Alan via phone recently. Because of the car accident he was in a year ago, our conversations are much like discussions with a little 8-year-old boy. Remember how boys can be at eight? They haven’t developed that tough macho hide yet, or learned how to hide their feelings. They have probably heard “big boys don’t cry” but haven’t yet mastered the ability to disconnect their emotions. They seem a little edgy, lightning bolts with skin on them. They are always discovering new things –for instance, how to swing a bat. And sometimes it brings them trouble, like when the baseball hits and breaks Mrs. Casey’s window.

Alan, 39, no longer laughs easily or interjects jokes in to our talks. He often misses his favorite truck that was totaled in the crash where he was ejected and left for dead. He’s agitated that the person who did this never came forward and is presumably living out a normal life. The police are no closer to discovering who eles was on the road day and the incestigation was dropped. He gets angry thinking about the hit and run and what it took from him. When he talks about how long he was in a coma, his voice starts shaking a little.

He missed Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He missed summer’s last hurrah-Labor Day Weekend. Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers complicating an already overstressed situation and The Iraq war raged on. "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey was topping the charts with the Pussycat Dolls song "Doncha" right behind her at number 2. I started attending a writers group. Sam had just begun blogging and first year in public school. Many people visited him, and he weeps when their names are mentioned.

Although he knows his family and friends, Alan still hasn’t much strength. He gets winded walking across the room. He can’t drive any more; he says he’s too afraid. Mostly, he admitted, he sits in his chair and watches reruns on TV. He read the first book in the Left Behind series but decided to wait a few weeks to read the next one. If he remembered his mother visiting just s few weeks before, he didn’t mention it.
When he remembers what life used to be like. “I don’t know what happened to me,” he says sniffling. I remind him it isn’t his fault.

He doesn’t remember much about what happened that day. He was going to cash a check from his machinist job where he was treated poorly and not paid very much. He was planning to quit. When he woke up, three months after the accident, he discovered they were holding his job for him. But he is unable to stand and unable to work.
He used to home school his four boys. He says he doesn’t know how any more. They try to deal with the man their father is now. His wife, faithful and true, works at a small town hospital in Georgia. He lives eight hundred miles and three states away.
He’s just not the same guy. And aside from praying, I don’t know how else to help my little brother.