This book is an anthology of short stories and poetry.  A good friend of mine often used the expression, ‘Go Straight to Pluto and Take a Hard Left’, when describing the improbable.  A lot of what is in this book rides this lateral wave with stories like, ‘Once Upon Space Time’, ‘Father and Bacon and Eggs’ and “Dragonfly’.  Other stories, however, cover a wide range of topics where one foot is planted firmly in reality.  ‘A Drive in the Country’, for instance is a whimsical romance that eventually goes sour, the events leading up to this manifesting in an unexpected ending.  ‘Going to the City With Uncle Bob’ follows two young boys dropped off at a hockey arena by their alcoholic uncle to watch their cousin play.  He leaves the boys there and goes off drinking, not even bothering to watch his son play.  The two boys end up being chased by a gang of bullies throughout the game, fearing for their lives.  ‘Writing My First Essay’ speaks of the academic difficulty of a character, now in University, who is woefully prepared for the challenges he faces.

The poetry is divided into sections, Poetry of the Seasons, Poetry of Physics, Poetry of Dreams, and Poetry of the City.  These words come directly from the heart and have this raw, passionate edge to them. 

Excerpt from ‘Father and Bacon and Eggs’: Here a young man laments the cheating of his girlfriend, Mary:

Mary is three blocks over at a party, but I refuse go there; it will do nothing but frustrate; I have tried many times before.  The arrow released cannot be returned to the quiver.  She is drunk by this time, and dancing around and screaming, and tonight is the night he will take her.  Tomorrow she will phone and cry and say she’s sorry, but she will always return to this time and take her place passively under him.  So, I sit on the concrete steps in front of the grocery store.   An old man approaches leading a goat by a braided rope.  I know he is a shape shifter because I keep running into him.  At times he is leading a cow, a chicken, a bucket of KFC; it is never the same thing.  He thinks this will effect his disguise but I have seen it all at many times and on many levels.  He always tries to change the story or to at least suggest it doesn’t happen.  Sometimes Mary and I are married – four wonderful kids, church goers, volunteers.  Perhaps I should relent and believe in efficacious futures. It is really kind in a way, I suppose, him wanting me to perceive differently even though he is from beyond space/time where these things have no relevance.  And he is vividly aware of the pointlessness of it all, but nonetheless has been assigned the perfunctory task of saving my soul and is merely doing his ‘job’.

Excerpt from ‘Dragonfly’: Jimmy is an adolescent in love with a young woman from a rich family. The love story, though hidden in an opulent landscape of fantasy, is nonetheless quite authentic:

Jimmy scuffed down the bank to where the 16’ flat-bottomed boat sat in the lazy stream.  It was painted red this year and the new paint was blistered in many places by the bleeding water.  Where the blisters broke the green paint from the previous year was visible, making the boat look as if it was an elongated insect molting.  The bow was pulled onto the muddy shore, and the transom sat low in the water, nearly submerged.  Jimmy, 15, was thin and small for his age and was often teased at school – ‘Slim Jim,’ they would chant. He had blonde hair with a noticeable curl in the front bringing him unwanted attention.  His cheeks were finely freckled as if he had been holding up a screen to protect his face from someone flicking brown paint at him.  His eyes, stunning, green, looked slanted as his eyelids drooped subtly, and he had full, thick lips so that it looked as if he was perpetually pursing them.  He would have to bail, careful that his weight did not become the tipping point sinking the long vessel once and for all.  But he had done this before many times and expertly maneuvered his weight as he scooped with the small pail.

It was summer vacation.  Tourists would be about today.  Perhaps Belinda.  He shoved off and pulled the cord of the Persian green Johnson Seahorse 3.5.  When it sputted to life, he turned the motor backward aligning the attitude of the bow to the center of the stream, spun it back around again deftly, and throttled up.  The boat slipped on the smooth water, passing over yellow and white water lilies.   Reeds on either side, rich and green were high and they encroached on the channel making it look even more narrow and tunnel-like.  They moved back as he approached and then swelled when he passed by as if they were breathing.

From ‘Poetry of the City:

Downtown Dennis
look at the pristine
in their custom cars
looking down
on those with compacts
looking down
on those with bicycles
looking down on
Downtown Dennis

yet it is strangely liberating
no one to despise
no one to thrill
at having lost
to make us feel better

From Poetry of Love and Its Loss:

beautiful country
part of why i love you is that i anticipate your
reaction long before my words are formed
because you are a part of me

in this way you are vulnerable and so soften your borders
to let me into the unspoiled country
that is you

though the passport image fades
i am able to trespass for a while
into your most lush innuendo without you even knowing
except in the most delicate nuance – a smile that betrays for a
moment my purchase

perhaps a sparkle in my eye or maybe in my turning away you will recognize
the child you love as i soften my borders to let you into the
beautiful country
that is you

From Poetry of Physics:

Lori
Your love comes in small discrete bursts
Your movements inherently random
Your world – the solidified light of the sunrise
The ineffable sunset
The square of the sum

Your body half alive yet half dead
Until you are seen
Sitting in the dark dissolving,
Dividing as many times as there are possible

From Poetry of Dreams:

Quiet Places
You live in those demure
Austere places
Which abruptly cyclone
So that you have drag your foot
To slow it down

You live at arm’s length
Privacy in conversation
Editing, blocking
Sending off into space
Speculation, images, that Indict the oncoming squall

There is no shelter
Save for words hastily strewn
On fragments of paper
Scattered about your home
You live in those quiet places
Cells within a body
Tearing at your clothes