Drinking with Death on a quiet afternoon — Never thought much about Death, until he pulled up a seat next to me at the bar. Death gets bad press, always the sulky guy wearing the cheap, baggy black robe, hiding his eyes, peeking out from under his hood, forever branded as the grim reaper, the scythe of death in…

You might still have it, but no one wants to see it — Nothing more pathetic than six old, naked people in a hot tub. A boiling stew of wrinkles, sags, bags, beer bellies, bad hips and knee replacements. White wine out of hand painted glasses, James Taylor the background for this bubbling time travel back to glory days. Pass that doobie, we still party, we still got it baby…

The steps to becoming a professional writer — We make the writing life more difficult than it needs to be. We aspire, we reach, but so many of us never achieve that level of professionalism where we can say our writing is how we support ourselves. New writers are seekers. We read every article, sign up for the…

Some old guys never do understand the difference — I spent most of my life more afraid of love than I was of dying I understood dying I didn’t have a damn clue about love Love was like religion, preached by the many understood by the few I grew up in the days when love was a joke only the old people knew The Playboy era, when…

When the dreams fade will you still be a writer who writes? — All writers nurture secret dreams of success. You write, rip off a piece of your soul in exchange for a few good words, then you hope someday your writing will be discovered, perhaps by a wandering editor killing twenty minutes at the coffee shop and read your work on Medium…

Soon it will be my turn to enter the stream — I sit alone on a jutting rock Nasty brown, muddy river water lapping at the mossy base of my perch The far bank shrouded in mist Cool fog roiling off the tormented waves What will be there when I cross My journey to this river’s edge a long one Years wasted…

Chasing the writing dream one rock wall at a time — Why my mother moaned, why do you always have to do things the hard way? The words didn’t hurt me much at twelve years old; I was already towering over my one hundred pound mother, but the rolled up magazine smacked on my buzz cut head did hurt a little…

High enough above the madness it can’t touch me — Sometimes, the world gets ahold of me I blink and blink, close my eyes like a small child if you can’t see it, it can’t see you but its madness grabs my neck And I fear…. fear for things I don’t think will happen Where will the anger take us…