“Keep Your Windows Clean”
When I Zoom meet with my poet friend Wendy we often share things we've read and take some time to write. The following is inspired from Ron Paggett's poem "How to Be Perfect", found in Collected Poems 2013. This line in particular sparked interest: Keep Your Windows Clean. Arctic ...
Waking from a Midsummer’s Dream
The Writer Elkhound's next selection. We've left the Shire and The Lonely Mountain. Onward!jl The light of August seeps into paper, weaves into the forest as vibrant as ignited confetti. Sun confetti.jl A crow perches on a high cedar and calls into the air, half- ...
Wordcombing on a Summer Day
Red morning... jl Summer palette deepens. The road curves toward home, overgrown and dusty. Notebooks fill up like baskets full of dry and fragrant kindling. I watch as hummingbirds thrum by - feathered kinetic energy. Studying cloud wisps, I imagine myself reclining on a raft, bobbing through a ...
DISPARATE – Piecing the Puzzle
Reflections on a Pandemic Spring leading into Summer: J. Laster “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley: In Search of America The Writer Elkhound on a pensive afternoon.J. Laster Opposites. ...
Corollaries of the Words We Use
A cliff edge that dares the speaker to leap. A journey home. Other words bubble to the surface when you cannot sleep. Northern insomnia. Or are found pressed like flowers between the pages in memory's hefty book.
One Word at a Time
"All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time." Ernest Hemingway Peach and gray daybreak.j. laster Brimming with New Year's resolutions, I find most of them have to with words. I continue to work on a novel that is nearly ...
THE ACCIDENTAL ORIGAMI OF WINTER
“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.” Andrew Wyeth The wind folded, ice creased
Shivers and Simmering Brews
"Suddenly the day was gone, night came out from under each tree and spread." Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree A month of urgency: the tipping from fall into winter. The waxing of a moon. The chilling of air. I peer through a mental View
Candles in the Dark
“But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.” ― Carl Sagan,The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark. Grandfather Spruce, Clay Products - j. laster “Why are there trees I never walk under but large and ...
WEDDINGS, WORDS, TALES TOLD AND PORTENTS OF THE NEXT ADVENTURE
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” ― Marilyn Monroe Two of the characters I am writing are falling in love. Everyone knows it. Except for them. They are are like travelers in an unlit subterranean place. And that's when the bullets start flying.