I was her first, and she was my last.I know that’s overly cliched, but it was the absolute truth for both of us. I don’t recall, exactly, the very first time that I saw her. She was working at a local market as a cashier. The owner seemed to rotate regularly through pretty girls from the local school. I had frequented there for close to a decade and a half, although I never asked how he managed to find them, but they were...

Looking around and seeing all the damage that has been done, and it seems as if there is no end in sight and I am looking for a miracle. I might have done wrong and just want be there when the dark morning light explodes across the skies and see you if I can and hear you catch your breath when you laugh instead of cry. There is a long road behind me with a thousand miles of memories some good and others bad, with there al...

The rhythmic, pounding bass and the horns of the Imperial March made her sit up, frantically searching for the phone in the dark. Her hand brushed against something cold, and then she heard the crashing sound of the water glass falling to the floor.“Shit,” she mumbled, as she finally wrapped her shaking hand around the phone.She was panicking that she was going to miss him. Only one person on her phone had that ringtone,...

Sitting here late at night and half asleep I seem to hear a voice calling me, as I listen and wonder if it is only in my mind or is it coming from someone I failed in some way or merely left behind? To sort it all out, I let all of the good and bad guys I have been along with the demons and angels who defeated them, come together in me now as I greet them like a cast that’s been assembled like a gathering in an empty room...

Just a glance across the street and she was there. The memories flooded back into my mind.It was a fragrant spring day. The cherry blossoms were making the soft breezes enticing and rather sensual. She had been there in those days long ago. And now here she was. I hadn't expected to ever see her again, but here she was.I remembered that first day I had seen her. I was a returning veteran having just completed service in t...

The walk took forever, but it was worth it as they reached an open field far outside the city. On the far side stood a weeping willow, the hanging branches swaying in the breeze brushing lightly against the stream that trickled around its base. When they were small, the land was dry and barren, but because of her, Dahlia, she cultivated the earth to now have her own secret garden filled with the flowers that share her nam...

Once again I find myself standing here leaning against a wall listening to the day’s sounds in the dawn’s dark light, as the sounds of chords being heard and then fading away as I vaguely remember how things looked when the day started. Noticing that all looks different and seems I have no recollection of how all looked before as I stand here feeling all-right, and knowing there would be emotion(s) involved but nothing sp...

We both want, an old-fashioned, wide-screen, Technicolor epic romance, a real Bogie and Bacall number. Instead, what we got that night was two old friends so smashed they started making out at a levee party.  "What in the world were you dreaming about, lady?" Amy Marshall opened her green eyes, pushed back her floppy straw hat, and looked up at Mark Cahill, her life-long friend, the man she’d just been dreaming about. "No...

Once again I find myself making my way down the line and this time I haven’t heard that old Highway 61 call, and knowing exactly where I have been and now have had most of my yesterdays tagged and filed away as I watch all roll by. And that Girl from The North Country Fair sits waiting while dreaming of fields of sunflowers bent over in the snow, as she knows that the time will soon arrive to have all start over again and...

Walking on the beach with you one winter afternoon near an old hotel that has been closed for years, which we have both heard that will be torn down one day soon as we feel the cold wind coming in from the dunes, and asking that you stay with me, and these are days that we need to hold onto and a time to remember and look back at. Both of us carry collateral damage after having lived through what seems like other lifetime...

Finding myself out here again on that old Highway 61once again, and hearing the old cries and commands in my head as I make my way where it leads, as the old cadence song of: ”Leforight, 2,3,4, sound off; 1,2, sound off; 3, 4, cadence count; 1,2,…3, 4!" are heard clearly. As I look back and know, one should never look back, but sometimes we do it anyway and see the flames, Which are still pouring from that empty boxcar th...

And though moments have passed by I find it hard to turn away and walking through those dreams that have been cast away on the way through here. With us all carrying some sort of scars like souvenirs picked up along the way, with the past being that is never far behind no matter how far we have traveled on down the line. And life is a lot more than what we are and sometimes sounds like an old tired song only we can hear w...

My whole life feels as though I have been waiting for the right time, and I feel lost or know how to feel at times. And never being able to say those words right though I knew of what I spoke of. Yet most sat and laughed because I couldn’t speak right, but those that listened knew what was said, even if they had to read between the lines. Remembering when I asked her to stay with me, and heard all of them gathered around...

The heads that turn as I pass by make my back burn from the vacuum of their stares, out here under the midnight moon, and hearing all the laughter when I pass by sometimes makes me sad, as I look up and noticed the stars have turned from cherry red to blue. Thinking that maybe they’ll get me and then again maybe they won’t and I just know it won’t be here, or tonight if it happens. There are things I could say but figure...

Smoky autumn night watching the ore boats passing by in the channel out near the islands, and mainland, and watching the water as the moon slowly rises up out of the lake. Making me pause, and begin to count the many tears I have shed over the years, and I know there will be a song that will linger for forever in both my ears, and head. Hoping that hard times will come no more, for I am tired of having rigged games being...