Art and Fiction

And One Poem

I am pleased to announce that my short story, “New Landscape,” will appear in the anthology The Walnut Branch, Volume 4, from Walnut Street Publishing. The presale is now live, and the launch will take place on Friday, August 1, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Clear Story Arts. The image for this edition of Crane’s Eye View is the publisher’s flyer. Thank you to Aaron Quinn and the staff of Walnut Street Publishing for their confidence in my story and my book, It’s Just a Phase.

Someone suggested that I put more of my art online, so the rest of this post is dedicated to my art. Although I have never considered myself an artist, I was thrilled to learn how to draw at a workshop, just over a year ago.

It’s Just a Phase. Cover Art by Ray Zimmerman, design by Aaron Quinn.

Ladybug. Watercolor.

Surreal Leaves. Colored Pencil and Chalk.

Surreal Butterfly. Colored pencil.

Trillium. Watercolor.

Insects. Colored Pencil.

Trillium. Colored Pencil on Toned Paper.

Luna Moth. Colored pencil on Toned Paper.

Mushroom. Colored Pencil and Chalk on Toned Paper.

Blood Moon. Watercolor.

Trillium. Colored Pencil on Toned Paper.

Blood Moon, Colored Pencil on Toned Paper.

Truro

I feel the grit of windblown sand. 
It stings my face and hands as 
freshly now as then for the first time.
It has burned the memory into my mind. 

On clear, still days, the scent is
an antiseptic normal saline, but
At Pamet Harbour, the sensuous 
low tide aroma greets my nose.

Another day, I remember the rank 
carcass of a Pilot Whale dead for 
seven days, and dragged into the 
salt marsh where scavengers left it alone. 

It drove me back to the beach to hear
the ocean’s rhythmic pulse. I once
Looked up to see the spouts of
four humpbacks headed south.

Their winter migration set my 
restless spirit to wander and not return. 

Graduation Picture: A Brief Memoir Piece

That kid in the picture. What did he know with his hair short on the sides and combed up in front in an Elvis Pompadour? It was 1971, and John Lennon inspired the “in look.”

So there I sat in the high school yearbook with row upon row of classmates, guys with long hair and some sporting wire rims, round as the edge of a dime. Granny glasses and granny dresses were typical for young ladies. In four short years, the world had gone from mod to hip—goodbye to microdresses and hello to jeans and peasant blouses. Goodbye to peg-leg pants and hello to hip-huggers and T-shirts.

I failed to wrangle a trip to Woodstock in my senior year, but my friends who attended had little to say about their journey when they returned. The old saying is true. Anyone who claims to remember Woodstock wasn’t really there. I heard that I was plenty crazy without chemical modification, me and my Elvis haircut.