The first time I ever preached a sermon I might have plagiarized Steven Covey. At least, I know that I referenced him and told everyone my sermon was going to be based on his spin-off book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. I think I was a freshman in high school, had been raised a Christian, and had been baptized for three years. When the opportunity came to preach a sermon, I didn’t know where to start, so I got the idea to put my own spin on Steven Covey:
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Category Archives: Books
Birmingham Pigeons—A Poem
[The following poem was published by VerseWrights in 2015]
Birmingham Pigeons
Allotted a life to live out
And fill out and empty out
That is one life too many.
I do not mean to play the fool
To hear your words as one deaf
I cannot take comfort in this here roost.
My friends, my familiars, my confidants, my compadres
My sweet bosom buddies—
You are all equally loved
As are my kinsmen and customs and hobbies
It does not sit well with me
None of it does sit at all well with me.
I’ve done seen one too many pigeons take roost
Fly back out again
Somersault downward
And go out rolling
Straight as a boat line
Never to come up.
Free Choice in the Fruity Fiction of A Clockwork Orange
Is Alex a victim of the modern age? He is certainly despicable in nature, and becomes the focus of society’s pity. And is it because he becomes an issue, the problem of sex and violence on youth?
Oh, but to readers, it is the question of freedom of choice. To Alex’s society, the question is whether we can reform a man permanently. But to us, it’s what we lose if we do. Continue reading
New Short Story Published by Bridge Eight
Check out my latest short story, “Three Acts for Kids,” published by the literary magazine Bridge Eight!
Birds and Bees—A Poem
10 Things About Boys and Violence I Learned from Blood Meridian
I returned recently to a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (or The Evening Redness in the West), because it had a lot to teach me, in a literary way, about masculinity and violence.
I was brought to those words when I thought of the pattern of violence in schools, and how not only the tools of these massacres a pattern, but also the boys and men carrying them out. Here are ten gleanings, drawn mostly from the words of the antagonist, Judge Holden: Continue reading
Week People—a poem
[The following poem was originally published in Versewrights.]
WEEK PEOPLE
Monday morning hates his job
a case of himself
saying hi to Bob in the hall
who says hey back to him in the hall.
The coffee percolates, drips
a long day inaugurates a long week
and it all goes downhill from there.
Meet the sisters of the arch:
Fat Tuesday, Hump Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday
drinking martinis round a table every afternoon
and sleep heavy that evening
after they hang up the phone
full of the day’s daily review.
Friday announces herself
steals the show
is twenty-three years old and
addicted to coke.
Saturday morning wakes up late
does not remember Friday or
what he did to her.
He sits in the house all day in his socks
when he’s not running marathons
or out of town.
Sunday afternoon is an old Brit sleeping
in a musty armchair
a wooden cross hung limply on the wall behind him
a glass of brandy forming condensation by his side
as he snores
the game blaring on the telly.
