Michelle knew in middle school that she was a lesbian, but it wasn't until today that she finally lives with the companion of her heart's choice.Beginning in the first year of her marriage in the 1970's - a marriage contrived by her for the sake of having a child - Michelle goes from life within the ice of repression, through startling family problems and finally into numbness of the heart, before finally making a dignified exit from her marriage, and finding herself where she is no...

In 219 words, I try to express the new world that a first deep and true love brings to us. I'm no spring chicken, but late in my life, I find that I've been blessed with the most remarkable of people, dropped at my very threshold. I hope these words shed light on the experience I've been having and remind others of their first love, or inspire those still waiting to keep their hopes alive.The apple, cleft from its bough, wrongly rises;Satisfied, yet always yearning,I ...

My hereditary insomnia has finally caught up with me, and it's my destiny to suffer as others have before. With a little humor thrown in, the reader can glimpse what it's like for a person who is falling apart from protracted insomnia: Bit by bit, you find yourself becoming, not just exhausted, but actually quite unhinged as well - and the only reliable cure is unappealing to me, to say the least. What are my sisters going to say about me now?No adult-only content.

The twelve pieces published by me thus far in 2013 are brought together under one cover, with the hope that the reader sees both variety and harmony in my approach to the short work. I chose the word excellence in the title of the anthology primarily because the writing is capable, the spirit is philanthropic, and the meanings are discreetly and engagingly pointed to.The reader will find my poetry: A Great Notion, This Love Is; Diamonds From The Void; Gonna Gotta Let My Hair Down; ...

Modern linguists have got word origins all figured out - or have they? There are scores of etymologies I would dispute, and I've selected what I believe are the fifty most compelling alternative etymologies that I've come up with.My etymologies ring with the very truth - some reflect the darkness of human affairs, some reflect the perverse, and some are light-hearted - even jovial.I have always found word origins amusing on my days off, and I'm the sort who can be found readi...

The greater part of ourselves remains hidden away, as time ticks down on freedom. What we have seen them wreak before, here and elsewhere, will be visited upon us. Three poems, 520 words.

Taking a tour through life in eleven vignettes, I try to show the reader what it is I see that makes our lives so precious - it is the subjective experience of being, knowable only to each individual. We can appreciate and cherish the value of human life if we reflect on what each of those lives is to the people living them. Ultimately we are passionate, dutiful creatures imbued with a sense of love for others that can only be blunted by succumbing to the effects of life's disappointments....

Lonnie McPhee was the epitome of success in the early twenty-first century, as well as typifying what was so very wrong with humanity at that time. He came to know that he had been deluded earlier in his life when he discovered happiness and purpose, but did it all come about because of one final bout of delusions, or did he really meet The Two - Yahweh and Asherah, Creators of the Universe?In his recollection, it was Asherah, manifested as a house-sitter named Gaya, who cast spell...

In three essays I take a journey from the light, through the darkness, and back into the light. Along the way I jump over meaningful(?) coincidences, human and humanity's mortality, evolution and devolution, imminent extinction, Fundamentalism and fatalism, the randomness of phenomena, a fine old miniature grandfather clock I have in my living room, oatmeal cookies, and, perhaps of importance - rainbows and leprechauns.To be fearless in the eye, yet gentle in spirit; to be resolute ...

These seventeen carefully chosen poems are divided into three chapters. By turns sweet, sexy, pointed and provocative, I strive at all times to be both entertaining and tasteful.The major threads (that I can see) are romantic love, ill-fated and wise choices, finding a voice in the world, nature, birds, and the cosmos.Degrees of choice, degrees of fate;Find your voice before it's too late.Inspired in so many ways by my best friend John, whose influence on me o...

Some say, "Gonna gotta let my heir down."I say, "Gonna gotta let my hair down."Where some see nothing but destruction, and in so doing contribute to the destruction, one can also see opportunities for creation. In this river of life, if we are to make our way, we have to be truly free in the senses of liberty and equality.They held a contest to see who could swim most like a fish; the couples who jumped into the water nude and made love were the unanimous choices of ...

Six idea-poems in all, in free verse; each idea-poem uses a motif familiar to everyone. The poems are: The Vase, The Whirling Wind, The Pyrrhic Victory, The Eccentric, The Television Set, and The End Of Time.From these motifs I jump off at various tangents to explore the meanings of my latest, greatest love. Do I find themes that are universal? I think the answer to that question is that if my findings are true, then they must apply, at least, to many, many others who have been dee...