From where it was to what it is — Do you remember Fred and Ginger dancing gracefully across the silver screen in many of the great musicals of the 1930s? Great music, and incredible dance routines, (many filmed in one take) with both making it all look so effortless. I watched them years later and brought this same sense…

Keeping our spirits up when the world lets us down — Writers write, but what we write, is supposed to be about what readers want to read. We’re supposed to know somehow. Understood the drums beating in the distance and deciphered what they meant. …

Reality is both good and bad — Bukowski wrote angry. He wrote drunk. He wrote minutes after getting laid or having listened restlessly all night to his neighbor trying to. Then he got up and wrote about what he knew. About the homeless. The dissolute. Whatever heartache was ripping through his life at that moment. The prostitutes…

Saturday Poetry Prompt: Ragged — I’ve walked through streets both cobbled and paved. Passed derelict baby carriages discarded not saved, Passed Amazon packages tattered and torn. Through neighborhood parks found littered and worn, Passed posters on poles of concerts and more Ripped, faded, and stapled since 1984 I’ve walked empty and tired and bristling with rage So often…

Poetry Prompt — I drive Often and steady Over potholes and broken lines Over asphalt as old as I am Over metal plates covering gaps in the earth. I drive Because I must To make ends meet To connect the dots To resurrect old dreams And promises wrecked. Through rain And shine and hot…

Writing is where it starts — If we’re writing, we are interested in being read. If we’re writing, it’s because we have something to say, and if there’s no one else in the house, and your best friend is in the Bahamas — again, then the written word may be all that rests between you and…

We need to change the narrative — Aging is a personal journey. Something we embark on the moment we’re born and that will never end until, well, until it does. How we view it is up to us. Whether we allow other viewpoints and opinions to affect us along the way — is also up to us…

… yet — I do not want to rule the world. At least not all of it. Not the parking lots and dump sites. Not the strip malls, graffiti-covered walls, or Dunkin’ Donut shops popping up around the cities. Nor the arms being tattooed with ducks and skulls. The cars being stripped. …

Lives begin as dreams and end as memories — It ended with sadness. The door slammed shut. The lock slipped neatly into place. A story that was or could have been — now over. Like so many others, closing on a muffled note. A whisper. As the narrator walked quietly from the room, never to return. Adolescence was meant…