We haven’t spoke in forever. I think of you often, wanting to push words, sweet as flowers, towards you in offering. But truth told my heart aches. My words gets stuck, behind my sternum, wanting to emerge. But they flap noisily in vain. I’m alright. I’m fine. I want to say something. But what? … Continue reading “I Am Trying To Say A Few Things”

My book, Black Steel Magnolias In The Hour Of Chaos Theory, has been awarded the 2019 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. I’m honored to stand along with fellow poet, Vernon Keeve, in the ceremony on December 7. Info on the event can be found here. You’re owed a longer story, check-in, but all I got … Continue reading “PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award”

Hear it yourself on Archive The vinyl noise floor of a 78 sound of an enflamed red curtain opening to an audience of ghosts filling the black air A piano primes the ether in an imagined drawing room All these years this song was launched in bass throat cannons To hear it aloft, living through … Continue reading “Listening To Marian Anderson Sing Go Down Moses For The First Time on Vinyl”

I was scheduled to read at a backyard poetry event in West Oakland on a Saturday. Days after agreeing, I was coincidentally asked to read again in San Francisco that same night. I hate having to read on weekends. Can’t say why, I’m just stingy with them. So even the thought of this made me … Continue reading “The Introverted Stand-Up”

Uncombable Hair Syndrome (UHS) is a rare structural anomaly of the hair shaft and usually appears in childhood It is characterized by dry, frizzy, silvery-blond or straw colored hair that’s disorderly It stands out from the scalp and cannot be combed flat, according to the National Institutes of Health. the stiffness of Uncombable Hair has … Continue reading “Found Poetry: Uncombable Hair Syndrome”

The awful virus of it; the expectations of genius Arising out of nothing mere attention to the banal I’ve gotten old enough to just watch and wait. Here’s a old haiku just for writers block: Disobedient poems! They never come When you call. Heel, u sombitch. Heel. But even if I sat in the grass … Continue reading “Writers Block”

The day of this interview, I took lunch and sat in the café downstairs from work. The café is awful; the items pretty and sweet and pointless. It rained noisily. I sat facing a boiling puddle and listened as close I could to the reporter on the phone. His voice warm and friendly, his questions … Continue reading “Strangers”

The title occurred to me years ago and for a long time I could do nothing with it. Its not the title of a poem, its a poem itself. The title sounds like something mis-remembered, a verbal mistake. It’s a mix / mash of things as I am a combination of multiple families, identities, routes. … Continue reading “What’s In A Name? Journey Of The Title”

Sometime around 2000 while between jobs, I joined a performance series named Four Brothers. It was the luckiest of gigs for me. The original Fourth brother couldn’t do that weekend of performances, and I had rent due. The show would cover it. I auditioned and got in. Our Friday show in Berkeley was quite successful. … Continue reading “Are Poets Ever Booed?”

David Roderick and the good folks at SF Chronicle very nicely published a poem from my new book. Bakersfield, was my first attempt at paying tribute to the family road trips we used to take every summer in the late 70’s, early 80’s. Those memories, what’s left of them, are of a pre-strip-malled, pre-Star*ucked America. … Continue reading “Poem Up At State Lines”

The only scent a rose may come to envy is a pineapple on the vine in the east facing window of a 3rd floor apartment. Confident and exotic, the plant announces itself before being seen, owns its space, and was the first plant I ever purchased a weapon to defend myself, my skin, the corner … Continue reading “My Pineapple Roommate”

The good folks at The Maynard just published a poem that emerged from a writers workshop I found myself in this year. It’s a form of some kind, where I write one stanza then attempt to rewrite/reconstruct it until I find a good place to stop.

Nomadic Press is now taking pre-orders for my first poetry collection, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory. I have no real second sentence after that. My bad. I’ve been mulling over it for days since the green light clicked on, and I’m still stuck. I am stunned and humbled. Its not … Continue reading “Pre-order –Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory”

No snarky stories or comments, as it was just a good, solid night of poems from every direction. My co-feature triple-kindly picked me up after work in the city for the long ride out to the café, fed me, then dropped me off safe at home. Thank you, Bruce. And big thanks It’ll be a … Continue reading “About That Poetry Reading In Half Moon Bay Last Night…”

WHEREIN THE AUTHOR CREATES FANTASY EPISODES OF AN UNPRODUCED SEASON OF THE 1970’S SERIES ‘GOOD TIMES’ WILL SUCCESS SPOIL JAMES EVANS? James gets caught in a surprise blizzard and is interviewed by a local weatherman, Gordon Howard, in that evening’s newscast. James asks: How’d you get a job like this? Is this all you do? … Continue reading “Ain’t We Lucky — The Good Times Project (Season 7)”

Part of drafting a poem is reading it aloud. Until its been read, it remains unfinished. * Midway through reading a poem I liked, I realized it was too long. I felt different about it as it was coming out of my mouth. Wrong room perhaps? Different kind of listeners? This morning I took that … Continue reading “Ways Of Looking At A Poetry Reading”

“No one can put a style on me. I’ve learned from many people. I change all the time. I experiment to keep up with what is going on, to hear what everybody else is doing. I even keep a little ahead of them, like a mirror that shows what will happen next.” —Mary Lou Williams … Continue reading “Mary Lou Williams”

This is the third blog I’ve had in about 20 years. With those first two, every February I’d challenge myself to write a biography or history one day for a month. It could be a fun exercise as a writer, especially when I’d get a day or so ahead of myself, and could post and … Continue reading “Black History As A Living Document”

Robert Hayden was one of the first poets whose work I was introduced to. Back in college, I wrote a paper on his poem, Those Winter Sundays. The Poem hit me close to home because one of the things it does successfully is underscore the tension between father and son, which I was experiencing a … Continue reading “Robert Hayden”

WHEREIN THE AUTHOR GETS LAID OFF WITHOUT GETTING LAID/ AND SCREAMS I BEEN IN THIS PRISON FIFTEEN YEARS Two days left before the office shuts down for good. After 80 years the firm where I work will be shuddered and left to history, though no one in the future will look back on this place … Continue reading “The End Of Our Elaborate Plans”