Category Archives: Poetry

Consequences

Posted on May 6, 2011 by sputterpub

     I wonder sometimes, how much adult opinions about youth are colored by adult experience instead of youth memory. It seems like I’ve known forever that nostalgia is hogwash: remembering the angst of adolescence as “the carefree, best time in … Continue reading →

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Dial Tone

Posted on May 3, 2011 by sputterpub

     When I was a teenager during the 1960s, we didn’t have cell phones. There were no personal computers. The Internet hadn’t been built. When I and the other boomers grew up we were in a culture a bit ahead … Continue reading →

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Black Hole

Posted on April 29, 2011 by sputterpub

   I’ve known a number of damaged people in my time. Mostly they were the victims of narcissistic or religious parents and many of them also suffered early loss of a sibling or other close relative with no opportunity to talk, … Continue reading →

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Protest Poem

Posted on April 26, 2011 by sputterpub

   Up the street from our house in Chula Vista was the high school, and behind the high school was undeveloped land. It was a place of sand and clayey soil, tumbleweed and manzanita, rattlesnakes and rodents and small birds. This … Continue reading →

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Good Friday, Riding Westward

Posted on April 22, 2011 by sputterpub

    John Donne is one of my favorite poets. Most years I read his divine poem on Good Friday, and I send love to the close friends I have who are believers. I started this sonnet in 1998 and just … Continue reading →

Posted in Lessons, Poetry | 4 Comments

Kid Prayers

Posted on April 19, 2011 by sputterpub

     My parents were not very observant, and although they always belonged to a temple my father expressed consistent distrust of organized religion. Even so, they taught me to pray. Or Mom did, anyway. She helped me memorize that childhood … Continue reading →

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Perspective

Posted on April 15, 2011 by sputterpub

   Today is traditional tax day. They’ve provided a little extension this year, as if tax returns were term papers, but April 15 is a time when it’s natural to contemplate our system. Usually I’m not negative. But sometimes I sink … Continue reading →

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Eloi 1966

Posted on April 12, 2011 by sputterpub

     I found this in the old poetry folder. I was 16 when I wrote it. I was starting my senior year of high school. The Summer of Love would come right after graduation. I remember that I composed it … Continue reading →

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Campfire

Posted on April 8, 2011 by sputterpub

     When I was 43 I backpacked for the last time. I’m sure of that, because the highlight of the trip was its ending. I would have paid a hundred times what I did for that hot shower. Not that … Continue reading →

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Money Love

Posted on April 5, 2011 by sputterpub

I got into the footlocker recently, and found a tattered folder titled “My Poetry.” It contains the first poem I remember writing (published in my third post in this blog, last July) and I smiled to read that I remembered … Continue reading →

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