Fallow Lands

Behold the salted land of plenty, raped and pillaged by its own devoted grace now stalked by storied banshee no lines by which to draw a brace.   What bounty once divined, what passion might have lain now blinded and maligned before the dusty plow could feign.   We are cracked callow and divinely sallow— [...]

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Relaxing the way to Creativity

Writers: booze is your friend. Well that got your attention, didn’t it? In truth, though, it may not be your friend, but definitely mine. Calm down, calm down. Please don’t call the parenting groups on me, and please don’t chalk this up to, “Oh dear, Galfie’s gone and gotten himself shnockered.” I am not about [...]

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Inspiration

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time…the wait is simply too long.” ~Leonard S. Bernstein Inspiration is the great provider to us lowly writers. Prometheus, if you will. The problem is that inspiration is never a constant. While months and years may go [...]

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Writing: For Self, not Sales

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” ~Cyril Connolly Writers, take those words to heart. I know many of you come to the pen with big dreams—sometimes those big dreams include fat wallets, legions of fawning women (or sparkling vampires, as you will), [...]

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Exploring the Imagination

What is a writer without imagination? It is the font of creativity, the well-spring of art that keeps us moving in a dry, dry world. Reality may lend forms to what we drink, but the imagination – the imagination breathes detail into those shapes. As Emily Dickinson once wrote, “The Possible’s slow fuse is lit [...]

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Writing: The Author’s Art

It’s a special day – a sound start to what I hope will be a fine week. Certain conclusions are wrapping around this writer’s brain and nearing reality. Excitement is in the fingers and on the mind – but such things must be teased out…As such, creativity’s heavy on the mind this day, and below, [...]

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Death of a Muse

Tender touches twilight now when you would walk through moon beams silver youth, in my mind, your long-tossed hair that fleeting glimpse unworthy hands would never know. A dream-wrought kiss for all sensation’s cheer— a note to set the pen to dance beneath your light. What is your name? Reality, but a longing and a [...]

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Colorless

They would not toy with it, nor move it by and by, for some irredeemable quality smothered within the sheet, the colored tape amidst a sea of flashing life cries, this rainbow city borne on secret chambers of the heart no monitors nor viewfinders might seek, and such writhe the passion, blinding hot, its heaven [...]

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Graduation

Graduation is here at last. If you needed an explanation to why the Den’s been a little quiet this week – look no further than that. In a wash of green robes and final papers, my week has been a flurry of continuous movement, continuous demands, and this single Saturday stands as the peak at [...]

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Of Frustration

Writhing serpent of my dissolution No solution To your pollution Of my ever-yearning soul No more grim atoll Might ever seize upon my whole— My life, my life! They call upon the fife Thrusting its notes upon the edge of a knife No travail Might ever prevail Above the madness that assail My spirit wails, [...]

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