I am a self-employed graphic and web designer, illustrator, fine artist and writer, combining a degree in English and a love of art, animals and nature to create logos, brochures, websites, portraits and paintings of the things we love and the world around us. While I have had much “professional” writing published, I
have never had any “creative” writing published aside from a
poem anthologized my senior year in college, a rather long
time between efforts though I’ve been writing all
along.
In addition to art and design, I apply my skills in
marketing and promotion both professionally and as a volunteer to social and environmental issues such as animal welfare, local environmental remediation, education and recreation, and business and community development in my hometown of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, in which capacity I am the director of Carnegie Renaissance,
a non-profit organization of business owners and residents who
are working to beautify and revitalize the downtown area and the borough. It is from all these efforts plus daily life that I draw much of my inspiration.
APPLES FOR
MY LOVE
I read a poem
About another
poem
Read to a young boy by his second-grade teacher
Which caused
him to fall in love with her
And carry her memory through all his
mornings and evenings
Inspiring his life as a poet and lover,
The
premise of the poem I don’t know to be true,
About a tradition of lovers
in France
To leave an apple on the bedside table at retiring
So in
the morning they could share a bite upon waking
To cleanse the night
must, then kiss to begin the new day together
Sweet and satisfying to
each other.
Whether true or not,
And though you are as distant as
that boy and his teacher and the poem and the apple,
I will
leave an apple at my bedside
For the morning when, finally, you are with
me.
June
Dusk shadows
sparkle with fireflies,
Air perfumed,
heavy:
June.
ROAD TRIP,
LATE JULY, WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
Green, green
waves ahead
diminishing to blue over the northern horizon
exalted
rises and shadowed valleys gradually made plain
to rolling hills and
misted hollows
interstate unrolled as ribbon
around hill and
following valley,
signs noting unseen destinations
bearing hopeful
small town
names:
“Freedom”
“Prosperity”
“Harmony”
little
hamlets of Pennsylvania coal being crushed to diamonds,
glittering in the
vales;
a gauze curtain of rain shower flows across hills
soaking
opposite side of road
but the sun shines brightly
ahead,
occasionally a sudden cluster of official orange
obstructions
gives instructions to change directions
slowing pace
to allow a close and careful study
of native plants along the
roadside,
a stately brick farmhouse, a skull with empty windows,
abandoned, its outbuildings only roofs in the tall grass
as if
melting back into the earth from whence they were created;
then a curving
exit that leaves the noise of four lanes behind a rise,
a sojourn on a
quiet two-lane three-digit backroad,
once the lifeline before the
interstate, now empty;
clusters of buildings at intersections, one
traffic light flashing yellow,
old farms and equipment,
rusted
industrial structures,
a field gone entirely to Queen Anne’s
Lace,
some cows on a hillside,
and everywhere roadside
stands
celebrate the first flush of mid-summer bounty;
collect
loose change from pockets and floor of car
and with the dole,
buy
fresh homegrown sweet corn to feed thy
soul.
ENTERING
PARADISE On the death of a downy woodpecker
who ran into my window.
I can only hope that
her heart was
filled with the joy of the unfolding spring
and that she saw paradise
reflected in the glass of my
window.
Like a
Tree
July 5, 2000
To live
my life like a tree,
to grow steadily from small
beginnings,
fervently when possible, and quietly adapt when
necessary,
stand in peace and harmony with my neighbors,
bear my
fruit appropriately,
bring shelter and comfort to others
indiscriminately,
and when my season is over
graciously give my
gift to the earth
for the benefit of myself and all around me,
and
without fear
patiently wait for my moment to return
in
spring.
AFTERNOON
ROMANCE
A woman’s wail,
beginning low and slow,
arose in the heavy August
afternoon,
exiting an open, unscreened, uncurtained window
of a
ragged apartment building,
lifting and curling
over the
street,
reaching a high-pitched shriek of ecstasy
in the
oppressive sun,
above buildings, cars, trees,
swirling among the
clouds,
for the moment the food stamps,
unaffordable car
repairs,
the kids’ bathing suits
forgotten,
pushed away
with the dreams
of the college degree and career,
the loving
husband and new house,
perfect children,
perfect life,
this
is real.
Dogwoods
May 27,
2005
The dogwoods are blooming up and down my street.
The
breaking of the cold,
The unusually warm, brilliant spring day
Has
brought my neighbors out to wash cars and cut grass.
Like the returning
birds
Their conversations drift and circle from yard to yard
