Category: Poetry

In Fifth grade I realized that I don’t think in sentences. My thoughts have associations that are not restricted to sentences. When I was young our assignment as a journal perplexed me until one day instead of writing what I had done I wrote about my parent’s neighborhood… manicured lawns and leathered faces, calloused flowers…

A friend of mine said something today in response to something that I said when I said that it changes a person when their parents pass. It was brilliant what she said… yes, we are now the adults in the room. I have noticed that it makes death more real, closer. And I say it…

A cigarette left in an ashtray. A cat, a tabby, and a newspaper against the door. I was once 64. And in October… my cat raises one paw and stretches. The sun talks to me. It says… what are the reasons for the sky? A black and white polaroid photograph from the seventies… curled on…

When I was a child I attended a school with accelerated classrooms. They were just casually sectioned off. It was the 60s and the school was known for intellectually gifted students. And for mainstreaming. One of my friends in class had Tauretes. We lived in an upper-class neighborhood. My friend from Church outreach arranged to…

It was around 1967. I had a gold stingray with a banana seat. I had a cowboy hat and cap gun. One night I knelt beside my father’s bed and I whispered, when I close my eyes I see cartoons. One day when coming home from school my mother told me that she had to…

There are diamonds along the road. Cast along the road. They smile and acknowledge the day. The others, they promised me, the silence of a sidewalk. Even in the presence of a conversation, when I got home. Always. This Sunday I walk to Church alone. I have been there and now I am somewhere else…

It was dry and the sun shone and the smell of the dust being hit by the raindrops. It was a sunny day without much reason. Kim was about 5′ 6″. It was Sunday after service. Sunday in Florence. And the Holiday Inn. I was seventeen and she was my newest best friend for the…

There was a breeze over by the baseball diamond. It was a small town, and the game was starting soon. We had a pizza that we had brought in with us and Pepsi. By the seventh inning the game was tied. The dogs had to be picked up on the way home from the game.…

Daylights turns softly The reasons for winter come upon the day as early fall. I wish upon my soul a wish I wished for you. As a child I knew, what was not said without a word for it. Is there a word for sorrow? I would before a smile know only one thing. But…

There was a piece of Licorish on the table. An open window where the cat came in. A bed and a comforter. And a sleeping Tiger. And a small man in the corner saying over and over…. There was a piece of…. My name is Albert Gray. I live in Hanton, Va. I live 5…

If there is a smile for a second. A branch from a tree falls. A thousand miles away. How similar are the lives of three individuals. Aside from the grass being cut and the clippings in the piles to be bagged. I wait beside the tv. I have a home, and a Guiness Zero. Its…

In 1973 during the summer, I have a memory of visiting with Eddie sitting on a Desk from one of our old labs, in our playroom. I thought it was the first time that I had met him, but it turns out it was right before they moved. I was around 13 and he was…

you have to decide on a career. you have to decide on friends. you have to decide on drinking. you have to decide on spending. you have to decide on drugs. you have to decide on opinions. you have to decide on teachers. you have to decide on principals and beliefs. you have to decide…

Becomes a Cartwheel. An article becomes abbreviated. A word becomes a whisper before it is stopped. A sentence becomes a look. I have seen you here before, haven’t I? Before what I wondered as I exited. A circle becomes a circle. A square is a circle. Or a triangle? I once met a man when…

A tip of the hat. A mark of the dime. A vagrant with a cat. A Mercedes on fire down the street. Or do the words fall inherent of their meanings? Or are their meanings shards of glass and as they fall formless, do they disappear? Only to cut into the mind and how deeply…

Over here beyond the Teflon Presidency, behind the Toys R Us Palace where Self-Determinization is preempted by birth. Beyond the camera’s faceless. Here I came to find Cosby’s Sweaters. Iacocca’s Chrysler Lebarons. The Catalog Showroom. The City Chase. I realized today I’m not depressed. I don’t suffer from Depression. A little bit. What’s really going…

I heard the Beatles for the first time. It was in Tucson at the home of one of my father’s Lab Managers. Bob’s son in Tuscon who was my age played a Beatles’ 45 for me and played drums to it.

Gus Grissom was found in the capsule in Apollo One when they entered, against the cockpit door trying to get it to release. The oxygen had burnt in the fire and suctioned the door in. My father never told anyone in our new city about his earlier company, nor did he ever tell anything about…