My grandma used to have an expression, “Well, here we are, dark and it a’rainin’.” I miss her. But here we are. Feeling comfy? I hope so. We’re back from WordPress, which was really nice but started getting very unstable. Weird font problems, lost and wandering links, etc. I thought about putting the blog on my existing Web site, and that’s a possibility if things get whacky here at Blogger again. But right now, I’m just not in the mood to webmaster it.

I hope you like the new color scheme. I did it just for you.

So, what shall we talk about? Poetry? Philosophy? Potential pandemics? OK, poetry it is.

I wrote a chapbook back in the late 20th century, called Finding Oakland. And I’ve been writing ever since, so I have quite a stack of stuff stacked up. A couple hundred poems, maybe. Haven’t counted them.

A couple of years ago, I started writing prose poems – sketches of short fiction – brief scenes in prose, but with a subtle meter, and an attention to the language that one usually employs in poetry. They’re good, I’m told. I’ve got about 30 of those, I guess.

My friends tell me I should endeavor to persevere to get my stuff published again. I haven’t been since Pembroke Magazine did a couple of my pieces in Spring of 2002. Four years. I have no excuse. Except that getting your work published is hard, and it’s not much fun. It’s a little like trolling for the Loch Ness Monster in a row boat, with a fishing rod from Wal-Mart.

I need an agent.

I need another cup of coffee.