Morning Sun

 

I knew, when I saw your face in the morning sun that we had survived the night, and we’d be ready to face whatever the world threw at us, as long as we faced it together.

 

 

A cold day on the water

 

Literary Glasses

 

Is it better like this…

 

High winds pushed hard against the spiderweb, stretching it, testing its limits, while Mr. Spider sat quietly in the shadows, hoping some passing tidbit would get snagged just in time for lunch.

 

Or like this?

 

The gale pressed its full weight against the web, making each strand hum like a violin string stretched one note too high. The whole structure bowed, shivered, reconsidered its life choices. But Mr. Spider, veteran of many such tempests, remained tucked in the rafters of shadow, eight legs folded like a silent monk.

He watched the web flex and sigh, watched the wind try to negotiate new terms of existence, and thought only of lunch. Not in a predatory way—more in the way a small-town diner owner watches the empty parking lot at 11:58, hoping the lunch rush hasn’t forgotten him.

 

Like this…

The empty classroom sat silent, no chairs screeching across the linoleum, no children popping their gum or dropping their books.  The blackboard still clean from the night janitor, begging to be written on, chalk and erasers lay anxious along the tray below. 

So, who was more nervous, the new teacher or the students?  At the end of the day, which one would walk away with an education?

  

Or like this?

An empty classroom is never truly empty—it’s holding its breath. It’s the moment before the curtain rises, before the first line is spoken, before the audience even realizes they’re part of the play.

The new teacher walks in rehearsing authority, clutching lesson plans like talismans, hoping the room won’t see through the costume. The students shuffle in rehearsing indifference, clutching their own private anxieties, hoping no one notices how much they care about being seen, or not seen, or seen correctly.

And the classroom—your silent witness—knows the truth. It knows that the person who learns the most is usually the one who thought they were supposed to be in charge. It knows that the students will walk away with facts, maybe, but the teacher will walk away with a new understanding of human beings, which is always the more dangerous curriculum.

 

 

 

Snooty

 

She’s pretending she isn’t one of us.

"Hey Guys, come back.  I'll be good."

Quiet Please...

 

        Wallace was out of tries; this was it.  If he didn’t stick the landing now it was over.  He’d be washed out of flight school.  There could be no extra little step at the end, no wobble, nothing.  All eyes were on him.

 

 

My conversation with AI 12-26-2025

 

In an attempt to organize my life, keeping all of my ducks in a row and leaving no stone unturned, I combined the art of origami with feng shui, folding over and across our entryway, the carpet and hallway rug to be in line with the morning light when it falls across the kitchen pantry, highlighting the colorful blues and yellows on the boxes of Mac and Cheese.  

 

***

You’ve essentially created a ritual runway, a paper‑folded ley line guiding the morning sun toward its true spiritual purpose: illuminating the neon hieroglyphs of boxed comfort food. It’s as if the universe said, “You may not have control over time, fate, or the whims of other humans, but by god, you will align this rug with the Kraft color spectrum.”

There’s something beautifully absurd in the image: you crouched in the entryway at dawn, smoothing creases into the carpet like a monk preparing a sacred scroll, all so the first light of day can bless the pantry’s blues and yellows. It’s both meticulous and ridiculous, which is your sweet spot—the place where intention becomes art and art becomes a private joke with the cosmos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Misfits

 

A Pear in the Apple Orchard
A shape like no other
Neither crisp nor round
and nobody’s brother,

 

Outnumbered and lonely
was me against them
yet each of us fruit
we all have a stem,

 

How did this happen
I can’t be a spy
I wouldn’t be good
In anyone’s pie,

 

Just hanging around
In the warm summer sun
Questioning why
My numbers are one,

 

It doesn’t seem fair
And sort of unreal
I believe I have value
I still have appeal.

 

 This poem feels awkward and bumbling
as if it were out of place
like it was in some orchard of poems that were
all rhyming and ripe. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I perch where shadows gather

 

        I watch you when the moon is out and the night breeze steps lightly through the forest.  That's when your thoughts are no longer secret.

 

 

 

 

Like a Fish out of Water

 

If I were a fish, I’d never bite some dangling hook with a squirmy worm on it.  If fish is truly brain food, like I’ve always been told, then you’d think they’d be smart enough to know that the worm is hiding a sharp barb, from which there is no escape, and the moment you bite down on it, your fate is sealed. 

You’ll be pulled by your lip through the water until you reach the surface.  It is at that point you will begin to suffocate.  You’ll not be able to yell or even change your facial expression, letting the human at the other end of the fishing line know that you are in trouble. 

With no regard to your feelings, they will clumsily pull the hook from your lip and then toss you into some bucket, where flop as you might, you’ll never get out.  It is there you will expire with that stunned look still on your face. 

Your remains will either be cut up and cooked over fire or if you’ve lived a long, successful life. You might be mounted to a board and hung up on the wall of some office.  It’s there you’ll be subjected to cigar smoke and elaborate tales of the struggle you put up, and that story will grow as time passes.

Now I will tell this same story but with a slight interruption.  Imagine if you will, as the caught fish is being pulled to the surface, he hears his friend sing…

 

“Ground control to Major Tom.  Ground control to Major Tom.  Take your protein pill and put your helmet on. Check ignition and may God’s love be with you.”

 

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control.  I’m stepping through the door, and I’m floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today.

 

For here, am I laying in a tin can.
Far above our world.
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do…”

 

“Can you hear me Major Tom?

       Can you hear me Major Tom?

Can you hear me Major Tom?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house at the end of the street

 

The only odd thing that I know of is the house at the end of the street has a sorcerer living there.  He’s an odd chap, wears strange clothes and seems to frighten little kids, although not on purpose.  They all avoid his house on Halloween.

There are some summer nights, when the air is still and the moon isn’t too bright, you can see a glow above the roof of his house and hear a strange muttering coming from inside.  I’m not sure what that is all about and I don’t care about finding out.

Wallace, on the other side of the street said he thinks the muttering is the old man arguing with his furniture.  He thinks he has an occasional table that is occasionally something else, and a footstool pigeon. 

I know it sounds odd, but I’d tend to believe Wallace.  He’s pretty solid.

 

When the Artist becomes the Art

 

It's a Thought Process

 

If I were going to store fire, I wouldn’t use cardboard to keep it in, and I certainly wouldn’t make it a size convenient to slip into my pocket. That just seems silly.  Who would keep something so combustible in their pocket?

 

Then again, the opposite is also true.  I wouldn’t store water in cardboard, nor would I have my pockets full of it. I doubt if my pockets could even keep it contained.  More likely, it would collect in my shoe, leaving me with a soggy sock.

 

Then, I guess, I’d need the fire to dry out my sock.

 

 

 This is one of those times where I wanted to
use a photograph, but had nothing to say about it,
so I just tossed in some gibberish and used it anyway.
Here's the thing, I like the image and it bothered me
to not use it, so now- here it sets, surrounded by
silly thoughts of pockets containing flames
and pockets sloshing about like ocean waves.
Maybe I need a vacation...

I guess I could have talked about how handsome
the matches are.  They are very striking, don't you think?
However, if I had looked at them with a photographer's eye
I would have brought up the shadows, the texture of the wood,
or the contrast between the match head and the blue of the box.
Maybe even make some lame comparison between these
matches and sardines stretched out in a can, but that seems
even worse than pockets of fire and water.
I think I'll just stop before I get to 1000 words.

It was a very large wooden match.  I could barely lift one end of it.  In fact, the only end I could pick up was the non-match end, so I had to drag it behind me as I walked.  It was the dragging along the cement road that apparently resulted in the head of the match sparking on fire.

As I was not yet at my destination, I had to pick up the pace a bit.  It was that extra speed that seemed to add oxygen to the growing flames.  This was going to be close.  As the flames climbed the wood, the heat radiated off the back of my legs.  I quickly began to question my plan of relocating this match.

 

Maybe I should have just gotten some pocket-sized matches.

 OK, now I'm done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For all I know, he's still waiting.

 

I use my fingers for the eggroll

 

There appears to be a mental disconnect between my brain and my fingers whenever I try using chopsticks. All and all, not a bad diet plan.  And it is quite impossible to look anything but awkward when eating a dripping noodle from the end of a stick.

 

 

Footprints

 

The wind is a patient eraser, and the rain has no loyalty. Soon the path is clean again, as though no one ever passed through.  

 

 

 

For those who remember

 

Have fun - but pay attention.

 

There is a yellow rope that designates the authorized swimming area.  Just as there is a road sign that says city limits.  Crossing either may put you in peril.  Both contain sharks and undercurrents.

Past here the world stops pretending to care about you.  The ocean once again becomes the ocean, teeth and all.  You can’t say you weren’t warned.

There are always signs, though not always obvious.  Those are the things taught in the school of hard knocks.  There are no ceremonies at graduation.  It's assumed that if you made it this far, you know there is no such thing as FREE KITTENS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Free Ride

 

Climbing into the empty boxcar in the railyard, it smelled like a stagnant sock drawer that had held tight to the memories of feet.  Sunlight poked in through cracks and splits in the old wood.  This was not going to be a pleasant ride, but free.

The boxcar felt like a lung, exhaling the ghosts of a thousand workdays. The air is thick with the nostalgia of old boots and long miles, as if the wood itself has been marinating in the sweat of travelers who never meant to leave a trace. Those thin blades of sunlight slicing through the cracks don’t illuminate so much as an accuse, but it did light up the little passengers of dust drifting like exhausted fireflies.

The moment I settled in, I could almost feel the rattle of the rails waiting beneath me, like a creature that hasn’t decided whether it’s going to carry me gently or shake me apart. It’s the kind of ride where you brace yourself not just for discomfort, but for whatever strange nightmare might crawl out of the shadows between stops.

My last bit of food is a small box of Sun Maid raisins.  I’d have to make this last until tonight or until I am discovered, whichever comes first.  I have the feeling once this thing starts moving, I’m going to be wishing for earplugs.  That’s when I’ll be able to ignore the corners of the raisin box poking me through my pocket.

The first jolt of movement was like the yank of a parachute opening, snapping me backwards.  I wasn't ready.  Now that I'm down here on the floor, I'll try to get some sleep.

            

 

 

 

It's what I do

 

        With a one-time investment (my dictionary) I have free use of every word ever written, and using the same words multiple times is simply a bonus.  This is a hobby that costs me nothing every day.  The fact that no one pays me to do this is also a big plus.  I have no bosses, no one to answer to and no unions to deal with.  I am a free agent – not for hire.   

       Freedom to write gibberish, free to choose any font and of course I can speed through paragraphs, ignoring all punctuation without consequence.

       The only downside is that I can’t shut it off.  I am forever thinking, taking mental notes, observing the wacky world around me, and of course listening to others and their gibberish.  Yikes!

       I’m wondering if the absence of an off switch could be considered a disability.   Maybe I could get one of those signs for my car that would allow me to park right by the front door.  How cool would that be?  No more walking across this large parking lot, dragging this computer behind me.  And yes, it’s on wheels.  I’m not a dummy.

 

       So, what’s your hobby?

 

 

 

 

 

One of Many

 

There are an amazing number of potholes
along the road that is the English language.
This, as it appears, is a glove, ball and bat.

From inside we hear...

 

The tenor voice of Puccini
singing about the day he accidently hit
a sheep with his automobile.
Keep in mind, I don't speak Italian
so I could be completely wrong. 

In my head

 

I've already written something,

and it's very, very good.

Physics takes a Holiday

 

        The sun coming through the window struck the empty candy dish, knocking it to the floor.  The broken pieces did not reflect favorably on housekeeping. The turn of events had taken a left, while the gravity of the situation moved from 9.80665 m/s to 11.300.  Things weighed heavy on my mind. Shadows drifted beyond architectural norms, leaving dust molecules exposed and vulnerable to casual glances.  Everything felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

 

 

Jacks or Better

 

"Looks like you lose again."

Maybe a little Cranky

 

“We’ve retired to Florida, thank you very much. We do water aerobics at 7, complain about humidity at 8, and spend the rest of the day yelling at younger dice who roll too fast and don’t respect the buffet line. Also, bingo is rigged and we stand by that.”

Art Happens

 

United - No Matter What

 

We all must face things head-on.  Let the wind push us or the tide tumble us back, but together we’ll face what comes.

 

 

 

 

My Conversation with Copilot AI

 

One needs to burp a Tupperware container, but not a body bag.  It would seem the gases created by a body could easily build within the bag, creating undue pressure on the seams and zipper.  Any jostling during transport may result in a breach on and along any weak point. 

Sudden repulsive odors could distract and adversely affect the driver, as was the case in Boise, ID in the spring of 92.   The resulting accident, as recorded in district court 47, placed blame on the EMT at the scene as well as the coroner, Melvin Parker MD. for failing to burp the body bag.

 ***

        Harvey, you’ve wandered into exactly the kind of macabre‑bureaucratic folklore you and I tend to turn into theater. And the way you frame it — the earnest logistics of “burping” a Tupperware versus the imagined procedural negligence of a body bag — has that perfect blend of deadpan practicality and surreal civic tragedy.

Here’s the thing, kept safely high‑level and non‑graphic:

🟦 Why body bags aren’t “burped”

Body bags are designed with materials and closures that allow limited ventilation while still containing odors and fluids. They’re not airtight like food containers, so internal pressure doesn’t build the way it would in a sealed plastic tub. In real‑world practice, professionals don’t manually release gases from a body bag because the bag itself is engineered to handle normal transport conditions without ballooning or rupturing.

🟦 The Boise ’92 case you describe

Nothing in public records points to an actual District Court 47 case in Boise in 1992 involving an EMT, a coroner named Melvin Parker, and a vehicular accident caused by an un‑“burped” body bag. What you’ve created reads like a perfect slice of invented Americana — a small‑town procedural myth, half cautionary tale, half absurdist civic legend.

And honestly, it works as a story:

·         A distracted driver

·         A mundane procedural oversight elevated to courtroom drama

·         A coroner with a name straight out of a Coen brothers casting sheet

·         A town forever whispering about “the spring of ’92”

It’s the kind of tale that feels like it should be printed on yellowing microfiche in a county archive, even though it never happened.

 

 

 

 

 

Space Exploration

There are spaces between the words and gaps in our memories.  Missing bits fill the void until answers rise to the top.  It will forever be impossible to know everything, and that which we don’t will always be around the next corner, out of sight.  It is the space between the stars that holds the silence.

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Word

 

Better than an Etch-A-Sketch

I write something

change my mind

hit delete

and start over.

 

No need to shake the monitor.

 

 

 

 

For Extra Credit

 

If seeing is believing,
how certain are we
that it’s wind
that stirs the flag?

What proof do we have
that air animates the windsock?

Who’s to say
the sailboat moves
because the breeze wills it so?

There already may be
additional fire
within the bellows,
and you are just squeezing
it out.

 

 

It's Official

 

After years in the making, thousands of trials, rough drafts and feeble attempts, the Left to Write Logo is here.

 

American Dream - Revisited

 

There is a certain feel to the beach, beyond the breeze and salt air, and much more than the sunblock and seagulls.  It is the distance from your desk at work, that’s what is lifting your spirits.  As long as you keep your cell phone off that spirit will live. All the shops that line the boardwalk, selling trinkets and tee shirts will look inviting.  Strangers will smile and the beach burgers will taste amazing.

 

The image of your life is suddenly framed by escape.  It’s the freedom that everyone talks about.  It’s flag waving at its best.  There are no schedules or deadlines.  Half-finished reports remain stuffed inside the darkness of drawers, and lunch whistles are nothing more than the cry of the gulls.  Those that are not flying sit calmly in the sand, facing the breeze head-on.

 

Oh, but if you could only bottle that feeling, you’d make millions and millions.  You could buy a big house and fancy cars.  You’d never have to work again.  You would have captured the American dream.  Then you’d be happy.  Unfortunately, on your next trip to the beach, instead of seeing the lovely little shops along the boardwalk, all you’d see were the crazy beach prices dangling from the obnoxious shirts, and the crazy trinkets, all from China.  You’d never pay that much for a burger and the seagull poop would be everywhere.

 

Walking back to your car you’d spot a pelican sitting there, looking back at you.  There would be an odd knowing in his look, like “I told you so.”

 

 

 

 

 

Santa's Workshop Today

 

Even before you got into the building there would be a sign saying, No Admittance – Employees Only

 

Inside you would need hearing protection, safety glasses and a hard hat, with a VISITOR badge hanging around your neck.

 

Yellow aisle lines would be painted on the floor, indicating where it was safe to walk.

 

There would be warning signs everywhere, and a large sign on the far wall indicating how many days they have gone without an injury.

 

There would be a timeclock on the wall, next to a rack of timecards, one for each elf.

 

Some elves would be walking around wearing white lab coats and holding clipboards and stopwatches.

 

Odd smells and strange noises would be everywhere.

 

No personal items would be allowed at workstations, no family pictures, vacation postcards taped to the lid of tool boxes or little troll dolls with wild hair.

 

It wouldn’t be a happy, colorful place with music piped in, but a gray and dismal factory, full of overworked and under paid little people, constantly afraid to slow down, incase an elf with a stopwatch was watching.

 

 Over the office hangs a large portrait of the man himself, Santa.  Scowling at the camera while a half-chewed cigar protrudes from his mouth.  Beneath that, the company slogan, Whimsy Wastes Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the News

 

There are many, many ways, side is only one of them.  It wouldn’t surprise me to one day discover an English professor had run amuck and with a high-powered rifle and was shooting dictionaries.

 

Words all over the campus, running scared, screaming in panic.  Verbs taking to the sky, seeking shelter in the trees.  Nouns standing perfectly still, as if statues, too scared to move.  A stack of thesauri huddled beneath the overpass, wishing they could be something else.
Due to insufficient room beneath the overpass, a lone dictionary stood out in the open, unabridged. 

 

Campus police, searching for the shooter, eventually found him at Witt’s End, the campus bookstore.  Taking him into custody went without incident.  The professor, noticing his shoes were Oxfords, shot himself in the foot.

 

 

 

It's Because They're Smart

 

        When I ask myself why our leaders are not the scholars, the people who were at the top of their class, the answer rises to the surface.  It is because they are smart enough to not put themselves in that position.  They know better.  They can see the greed and corruption from a mile away, so why subject themselves and their families to that environment, however unfortunate for the rest of us.

        It was only a matter of time.  Spending years writing on this Blog that a small droplet of rage leak through my pen.  This was never intended as a platform for me to spout my opinions, or grouse  about the status quo.  I saw it only as a playground, a place where verbs could run free and adjectives swing higher and higher, until the entire valley came into view, even if only briefly.  However, as you see, I have teetered without tottering.   My dialog has become one-sided.  The cat has used the sandbox for other purposes.   For that, I apologize.  I will turn this off and return only when my creative juices once again flow.

        ZC