What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

Something like this.

I’m always putzing around in my leisure time. I’m on my laptop picking away at something or reading what someone else has written, I’m scribbling in a notebook, I’m reading on my Kindle, listening to an audio book, or holding a paper one in my hands, which is too infrequent these days.

But I enjoy putting words on screens and papers, I enjoy getting them out of my head and my hands and making them into something someone can use, even just me.

I want more than … Read the rest

What’s your dream job?

If you’re here reading this, you’re sort of looking at it.

My dream job is to write for a living (again). I got a taste of it for a few years when Newsbreak was just throwing money at me, but that income source dried up like an old African desert well and the tap has never really been turned on for me again.

So, I write.

I write poems every day, not because I think they’re going to make me money, but because I love writing poetry and I think the more I write, the better … Read the rest

He slams the cash on the counter. “I need a bouquet with a hidden meaning.” He’s not the first to ask.

“What meaning, sir?”

“Murder.”

“Murder again!?” the shopkeeper exclaimed.

She puttered around the room and talked:

“Well, my heavens, sometimes I wish I didn’t keep promises, like when I promised to keep this shop open after my grandmother died. She passed the magic along to me, though. Don’t worry, dear. I’ll solve your problem.”

She presented him a bouquet of the deepest red roses, and he watched her spray them with something.

“Don’t sniff – only her.”

“Who?”

“Your … Read the rest

We’re not out of the woods yet
but I feel like we’re getting closer
to the edge of reality, to the place
where we can be together without
any one else’s bad juju. 

And if we can’t just be
left alone, on our own, 
maybe we’ll steal a pickup truck
and maps from a gas station
(if they even still have maps)
and I’d get in and look 
at you and I would say:
Go west, babe. Go west.

Today’s poetry prompt words were: out of the woods, pickup, and maps. 

_{Image made by me with Gemini and I’ll explain}

“We need to talk.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the alien you’re hiding in the attic.”

“You want it gone?”

“No, I just think if you’re going to hide an alien it shouldn’t be in the attic. We have a basement, that’s more dungeon-y.”

“But I want her to feel welcome.”

“Oh, it’s a her now, is it?”

“It’s always been.”

“What are you doing with her up there?”

“Experiments…”

“Are you probing her, Carl? Are you playing doctor with the alien?”

“No, Maude, I’d never! Maude, no, don’t go up there!”

“I’m going!”

“No! Uh, I can explain the lingerie!”… Read the rest