Bringing two poems into the digital age

Presenting two poems into the realm of cyberspace is my good deed for the day.

Meeting the Moment

In the terrible disaster that has befallen this nation since early 2020–and continues unabated to this day–there have been moments of hope. For me, a moment of hope comes each Thursday night, when I gather with friends from both the real and virtual worlds to share poetic selections with each other on Zoom. Poetry was

Tails and Legs and “Fraudulent” Presidential Elections

There’s no single subject I’ve written about more often on this blog, in the nine years I’ve been doing this, than Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps that’s because time and again, examples from Lincoln’s life and times bear a striking relevance to our own. The disputed (by some) presidential election of 2020 reminds me of a story

Farewell to the King

An original poem for these times

I have found great comfort over the past few years from reading poetry. The way I see it, there are hundreds of poets, and thousands of works that they’ve created—who knows how many there are, even?—and even if I can only make sense of a small fraction of them, I’m still better off than I

Sharing my concerns about a Confederate statue in Chicago (Updated x 4)

Image source: TheGlitteringEye.com Dignity Memorial operates more than 2,000 burial sites, including one not far from where I live. But a site that they operate on the South side of Chicago, Oak Woods Cemetery, is notable for being the final resting place of more than 4,000 Confederate troops who were captured on the battlefield and

Working through the grief

“Dogs’ lives are too short.  Their only fault, really.”  – Agnes Sligh Turnbull One of the things I’ve been doing during the COVID-19 lockdown is finding interesting quotes from people, about all manner of things. I send an email every morning to sign in for work, and I’ve become very fond of hunting for quotes

Some People Ain’t Kind

RIP to John Prine. I’m only now discovering his music, and that’s certainly my loss for waiting so long. But those who were in the know about these things are mourning his loss today. It’s such a tragedy that a virus that was officially written off long ago was what finally did him in. His

Put another dime in the jukebox, baby

The losses to COVID-19 continue to pile up, now exceeding 43,000 deaths worldwide, and over 4,000 in the United States. I put in a link so that the total can be tracked in real time, but it’s going to be an awfully big number by the time it is all over. Awfully bigger, I should

Why I’m taking a knee today

If you wanted to be somebody at my high school (which no longer exists, by the way) you had to be on the football team. There were other sports teams and activities, but the attention that was given to the football team made many of my classmates put in the time and effort that were

It’s gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me

I’ve been writing this blog for almost six years now, and have put more than 1,500 posts up for the world to consider. I do it because I know that we’re all mortal, and when we leave this world there will be few traces of us left behind. Whether anyone alive today reads these things

A new word for these times

Portmanteau is a concept that we all live with everyday. It’s taking two–or sometimes more–words and combining them to form a new word. My dog, for example, is a schnoodle, or a cross between a schnauzer and a poodle. Other portmanteu words include jeggings, listicle, and threepeat. The malleability of English guarantees that new words

Hamilton and what makes America work

I’ve written before of my fondness for Hamilton: An American Musical. I’ve listened to the songs–over and over and over again–but haven’t seen it on stage, and don’t think that I will for a long time, if ever. Not because I don’t want to, but the price of tickets precludes that from happening right now.

Looking forward to some Mighty Cubs Blasts

I recently happened upon Evangeline, a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I’m not very much of a poetry guy, but I found an old book at an estate sale with some poems inside, and decided to start paging through them. I even spent a quarter on the book, so I may as well see

The hand of fate

Watching my daughter as she goes through her senior year of high school reminds me of when I was 17, itching to leave my parents’ house and see what else the world had to offer. I wanted my escape route to be the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, and came about as close as

We are the Dreamers of Dreams

R.I.P. to Gene Wilder, who brought Willy Wonka to life like nobody else could.  2016 hasn’t been a good year for guys who wore purple. Thanks for all the memories.  

An easy way to help

This evening, I had the nightly internal conversation about what to make for dinner. Since we already had some tortilla chips, some lettuce, and a few small tomatoes in the house, my thoughts turned to taco salad. But a few ingredients were also missing, so I pulled on my low cut Chuck Taylor’s and headed

An electrifying tribute to Prince

I write my blog for many reasons, but at the bottom of it all I like having a place to go with a story like this one. It will be gone in the morning unless I capture it now, so here goes. Chicago, very early Sunday Morning I had picked up my teenager from a

No time for Trump

I am confident that Donald Trump understands the concept of property very well. When you own something, you can use it as you want, and the law prevents anyone else from doing the same. Songs, books, drawings, or any other forms of creative work are also property, and they belong to the person or people

A beauty of a poem about America

One of my favorite books is titled “Our American Heritage” and it was edited by Charles L. Wallis, and published by Harper & Row in 1970. My recollection is that I purchased it at the Newberry Library‘s annual book sale at least 10 years ago, and perhaps even closer to 20 years by now. It’s

Saturday in the Park

I’ve just passed my actual birthday, and I’m in between two very important dates to me. So at sunset on a beautiful day in the park nearest my home, it’s time for some reflection. For five years, I’ve filled this blog with stories, ideas, pictures, limericks, and whatever else has come into my head at

In the #HamZone

The Tony Awards are tonight, and I plan pay attention to them this year because of the Hamilton phenomenon. I’m surprised I haven’t written about it here, because I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for months on end. If Prince hadn’t died in April, it would now be month three of solid Hamilton listening for me.

Sign O’ the times, mess with your mind

Learning that Prince died from an overdose of fentanyl makes his death harder to deal with than ever. I’ve forgotten by now what the original cause of death was reported to be, but people swore up and down that his religion and/or his healthy lifestyle meant that drugs could not have played a role. But

Being somebody

Last night I saw my daughter perform onstage with the rest of her classmates. They performed “In the Heights” and it was a one-shot performance at the end of the school year. She goes to an arts school because she grew up loving Disney musicals and Glee and Wicked and High School Musical. She’s performed

Enough is enough

Opioids are taking a terrible toll on this country, and yet they’re perfectly legal. The Pharma companies that manufacture them are profiting from addiction and death. I’m grateful I don’t know anyone who has had an addiction to these things, but not everyone has been so fortunate. Can we now have an honest discussion of