The Poetry of Baseball

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." ― A. Bartlett Giamatti

The Mag 192

Resurrection Reunion 2 - Sir Stanley Spencer

Resurrection Dance

They shake out bugs

the webs

the claustrophobia

the ground  above

has opened

dark loam scattered

among sharp green blades

They link hands

rediscovering touch

 kick up their heels

circle and shout
they are all out!



Michael A. Wells


The Mag

Finding the Poems You Never Knew You Had

Think of it as a Kick-Starter. The dynamic writing duo of Kelli Russell Agodon and Martha Silano have created a tool that that can prime the ink of any writer. The Daily Poet is chucked full of opportunity, just add yourself to the mix.

The idea for this book came about as a result of Agodon and Silano sharing writing prompts over a period of time. Recognizing the value of this practice to each of their own creative efforts they decided to produce a volume of prompts that will guide a writer through 365 days of spark that can ignite many new poems in the process.

I don’t know if it was planned this way but the timing of the release of The Daily Poet is perfect. In advance of the holidays this book is an ideal gift for the writers in your life. In addition, it is excellent fuel for anyone who might be looking for a realistic approach to a new year’s resolution to write more. With this book you can commit to daily writing and never worry as you sit down – “How am I going to start?”

Each prompt is a trigger to something inside, something waiting to be told.  I’ve reviewed the contents of this book  and tried several of the prompts myself. Any writer regardless of level of experience can find value in these exercises. While there are so many wonderful ideas among them,  a few of my favorite prompts area:

• January 12 – Letter To An Artist
• July 27 – Grateful Dead
• October 13 – Who’s Afraid of Any Author?
• December 8 – Letter to An Abstract Noun
• May 25 – Taboo You
• January 22 – Couplet Lost

Of course you’ll have to get your own copy of this prompt packed book to see for yourself the details of these fabulous exercises and no doubt you will have your own favorites.

I see this as an investment in writing exercises for many years over as you can use the same prompt at different times and find it will take you different places.  It's my recommendation that you add it to your own library and enjoy the journey.


The Daily Poet
Authors: Kelli Russell Agodon & Martha Silano
Published by: Two Sylvias Press

Available in paperback and ebook

Confession Tuesday on Wednesday

Dear Reader:

It’s been 8 days, two rejection letters, a flat tire and a novel finished reading since my last confession. I’m cranking this out at lunch time so let’s going to the confessional.

I confess I’ve over the unplanned expense of a new tire. I was over the rejection letters as soon as I read them. I don’t dwell on work rejected. I always consider that in order to have work accepted I am going to get rejections so I expect that I will be told no many times and that getting a no means there is a yes coming soon.

This time of year is odd because I enjoy the cooler weather. I don’t like extreme cold but we get some pretty nice fall days. Then there are the rainy ones like today when the coolness and the overcast skies tend to bring you down a bit. I confess days like today I want to stay home and under the covers. Of course I don’t do that but the thought is nice.

It seems like any more it’s always cold and rainy on Halloween here so if today Xeroxes itself for tomorrow it will be right in style. I confess that while I realize Halloween has become almost as much an adult holiday as it is for children, I or we’ve never every gotten into the adult dress-up party mode and so the day seems rather remote for us.We have dressed up the dogs a time or two but that’s usually been with the help of one or another of my daughters.

Speaking of help and daughter, I left work last night to go to the new home of one of my daughters to help her with the hookup of a washer. I had only been to the house twice and one of those times I did not drive and I didn’t come from downtown so I was trying to get there as direct and quickly as I could in rush hour traffic. I used voice input to put the address into my phone GPS and what should have been the number 68 was understood to be sixty or 60.  I confess I was nearly to the 60 destination before I realized it did not hear 68. I pulled over and restated the address. Again it read it as 60. I tried again annunciating v e r y   s l o w l y and it heard something else altogether that was not a number. I confess at this point I was about as angry as one can get with an inanimate object. This was disturbing to me as I realized how unbecoming it was. No one else was in the car but it did incense my own sensibilities that I was so angry over this. I finally typed it in after numerous voice attempts all failed. I though what a jerk this person is in the car…  I confess he’s not coming along next time.

The Mag 191

le Jardin, 1962, by Max Ernst 

Cartographers Woman

He is one given to meticulous detail,

appreciates boundaries, and topography.

He has an eye for cityscapes, rolling hills-

the arches and clefts.

He sees beauty in the world

where others see the mundane.

Everywhere the lines and curves 

converge for him and they come to life.

A rivers path carved out of the land

over time reveals swaying hips. 

In rolling hills he sees the waves of hair

falling over shoulders and too the fullness

of breasts and the cleavage that runs between

the rounded tops that softens out into the larger plains.

In the contours of it all he sees her face, 

her long white legs and feels her every bit alive.

He believes he is the luckiest man for he sees

his woman is everywhere. 

Michael A. Wells

The Mag

Confession Tuesday - Safe Place Edition

Dear Reader...

It's been one rejection, one home office reclamation and a week since my last confession.

This morning I stopped for a Diet Coke in route to work and when I cam back into the parking lot and entered my car I looked up and saw the Safe Place sign. I confess I don't know if these exist in other metropolitan areas but here certain public establishments are designated as such primarily for that children facing eminent harm within the community have a very public place to retreat to for safety. The idea is marvelous but that's not my point here.

I confess that as I looked at this sign it caused me to consider the reason we even need a safe places. The sad fact of the matter is that society is so saturated with things that pose significant threats to the safety of everyone.

For instance, many times I see people who are so short on patience with others in stores, while driving, at sporting events, there is a degree of hostility that is so potentially volatile that these very public places seem to breed unhealthy conduct between persons who often have little or no connection in life but decide to spew forth impatience that sparks rudeness and sooner or later people are in each others faces, flipping each other off, and now with most states having concealed carry somebody draws a gun.

Guns seem to be everywhere these days. Children get access to guns at home and tote them to school and the next thing you know we are reading in the paper that three-four or  maybe a dozen or more are dead in some school.

I confess that this sign this morning really brought to mind how many places that are not safe.  We hear of gunmen in Offices, Malls, Theaters and this says nothing of domestic violence in our homes where the perpetrator and the victim actually know each other.

I confess I think of places like Syria and Afghanistan and wonder what they would think about safe zones or houses that people could flea to to safety. Wouldn't they all be there? We aren't a nation at war with an occupying army... or are we? Have we become our own enemy?

What is safe? Where is it? I confess this is becoming  unclear. We are a terribly polarized nation. For a country that is supposed to be a shining example of freedom, so many are ready to tell everyone else what is right and what is wrong. Who we can marry, who we can worship, what personal health care their employees should have. Where we have to pray.

I confess that I have no answer to the question, how do we become a caring and unified nation again? Maybe we never were. Perhaps this nation was all smoke and mirrors. But I do know that it is too easy for people to get their hands on firearms.

I confess that next week I will still likely be wondering about the irony of an America that needs to designate safe places for children to run to. And where do the victim of domestic violence go, where to the children trapped in a room with a gunman go, or a Shopping Mall or a late night movie at a theater?

Just Saying....