She's Tall Now

She's tall now standing there with the refrigerator door ajar staring into a world of decisions.

The school day wears lightly on her face; her eyes dart between the shelves and the door like fireflies

She is tall now. Her mother competes in a fruitless battle. I notice. She doesn't have to stand on her toes; she doesn't have to step into the refrigerator like her sisters.

She weighs all of her choices.

She's tall now and indecision furrows her brow while she she chews on her reddened bottom lip.

In a moment, she shifts the weight of her choices on her hips and plucks an apple from the drawer and leaves.

Her choice made.

I consider this moment in the continuum of her life - my life. She is tall now. The choices are hers now. I fear the seduction of the artificial and the shallow will sugar over her innocence, but I remember the apple and all of its symbolism and think . . . she chose the apple . . . and her life will be rich.

Kings of Suburbia

This is our dominion.

Castles. Secured bastions skirted
by an infantry of concrete.
Sinewy sidewalks,
tandem curbs line neighborly boundaries.

Homogenous mailboxes, sentries,
standing at attention
guarding asphalt moats.
Stones and bricks, bulwarks
against encroaching enemies.

This is our WAR.

We are the masters of strategy planning
against the parasitic platoons
of nimblewills and foxtails.
Ever vigilant against the goose and quack.

We are the generals marshaling
militant mowers, whining weedwackers,
and spinning spreaders
preparing pristine battlefields.

We are the Kings of Suburbia standing
alone prideful of our victories in battle.
Greener days are the dreams of tomorrow.
For us, we soldier on – watchful.

Power Tools

My neighbor has every tool you ever need for any job; they're kept in pristine condition. I've been in his garage. Its like a museum. The sander has a shelf, the skill saw and the drill, like dead bodies on the sidewalk outlined in chalk, hang plumb to the floor. The irony is I have never seen him use them, but, I know he does. I've heard them at night behind the closed garage door. He doesn't talk about his projects, but I hear the screams of the tools and the clammer of the hammer. It makes me wonder . . .

Power Tools

cool electrical power

silent panthers - waiting

to tear in to

to slice a part

to div ide from



honed glistening metal

transient makos - stalking

to dev our greedily

to con sume eagerly

to des troy completely



piercing metallic screams

dervishes in the night - wailing

a requiem of destruction

tear ing,

slic ing,

div iding,

devourin g,

consumi ng,

destroy ing,

only to create a new.

Transitioning into something more poetic

As one door closes another opens. So as I end this cohort experience, this blog needs to shift gears from the thoughts about our cohort to the poetry of a budding writer.

Over the past four years, I have been toying with writing a book. In fact, I have been writing a book of poetry. The working title is called: A Deeper Understanding of the Scratch: Poetry for Men. Now before the walls of poetic injustice fly up, please know that this a bathroom book, a humorous attempt by me to make fun of the middle - mediocrity, my waistline, suburbia, fatherhood, and being a husband. So I thought I would share the opening poem entitled "Hold Me." The original title was more abrasive, "Literary Masterbations," but my wife thought it to garrish.

As I compose (weekly hopefully) further portions of this project, I look forward to your contributions and comments - good and bad. Any good writer worth his salt looks for a good editor, I hope you will be mine. So here is to the scratch . . .

Hold Me

For years
I've turned my phrases
I've twisted my verse
I've honed my prose
Discovering my-self.

For years
Behind closed doors
Between stained sheets
Under expecting shadows
Searching my - voice.

For years
Splattering intimacy
Thrusting emotion
Forcing existence
Blazing my - identity

For years
On spiral lined pages
On formalized parchment
On soaked cocktail napkins
Journaling my - world.

For this
intimacy,
expectation,
moment,
this now.

Violence and Love

I know this blog needs educational purpose, but some things are happening in my life that need articulation. I've been reading the cohort blogs. They speak of insight and emersion to the point of exhaustion. . . I was riding on rt 1 heading north between Aquia and the Stafford Courthouse. In the left lane, my wife and I were discussing the details of our afternoon. The radio was on.

My wife grabbed my leg in a gasp, and to my right a minivan careened, pitched, turned on end, and settled in a ditch facing south. The entire driver side of the green minivan caved. A survivor of a shark attack, where leg muscles have been ripped away only to heal leaving these deep empty caverns where sinuous tendons and muscles once thrived, the metal too was contoured and glass fractured.

We slowed and pulled to the left side of the road. We were three or four cars back. We didn't have a phone, but four other cars also pulled over. There was a moment, a brief moment of silence. I don't remember the radio. The loud crash was silent. And in that moment I hesitated, waiting to see if someone else would open their door and make their way across the center line. No one moved. I didn't move. The sheer violence paused us all.

I opened my door and found myself running across the road to the passenger side of the minivan. I was alone. "My name is Marc, are you OK? Is there anyone else in the car?"

"My baby."

The young lady was dazed and bleeding from the chin and head. I tried the sliding door. It was locked. I scrambled with the power lock; the doors clicked. It slid easily making that whooshing sound. The six month old baby girl was lying vertically between the front seats and middle seats. Her child restraint was behind the mother's driver's seat - empty. The baby was wailing. I climbed in the car to see. I didn't want to move her. I was talking to the mother calmly, reassuringly.

She panicked. She reached behind and scooped the infant up by one hand and held her tightly her blood saturating the baby's head. Another man arrived; I asked him to talk to the mother on the driver side. As he made his way around, I told her help was coming, and I was worried about her baby. We need to keep her still. I asked the mother to let me hold the baby. She acquiesced and thanked me.

The next forty minutes were a blur of sirens: the police, fire and rescue, and that little baby's cry. She had a large knot on her head. I kept her tight to my chest keeping her head still. The blood of the mother matted in the girl's hair and on my chin and cheek.

It happened yesterday. I have very deep emotions about the scene. It was violent. My wife said she was surprised and proud of my actions. I hope it is the humanity in all of us that moves us to act but, I did pause. This bothers me too.

My wife enters surgery on Wednesday. A Greek doctor is going to enter the front of her neck to get to the back of it. “I do 200 of these a year.” He has confidence. I pause and consider this. We have fears, and we pause to consider this. He states this is the inevitable. We acquiesce and thank him.

In the wake of this tide, I will continue to pause to take stake and stock in the underwhelming importance of: a seatbelt, the five point harness for children, defensive driving, a baby’s cry, a grasp on the leg, our humanity, and my wife, my love, my partner who without I am less. So, as you consider the growing tasks on your to do list, keep the underwhelming things in your life important.