Midnight Bells & the Rondeau: Love in the Shadow of the Purchase     Louisiana had been returned to France from Spain and my gait had a new liveliness which could only be that of a lover. My fifty-year-old legs carried...

darkness dwells inside anger tremblesa lull in my speech means I am thinkingdevouring the light which shinesshrinking psychedelic thinkingstrobes of misery spinmy thoughts expandwith ideas of hurt to recallmy mind looks at the worldgood with fangs and clawsthe dark...

Under the slumping shoulders of the cafe's awningI watched tiny rain circles loosely burst in puddleson the ground whilemy hair lightly waved fromSeptember's weary winds.Nat King Cole sang softly"A Blossom Fell,"on small hanging speakers when she strolled byquickly catching...

Day And Night in the Hot South     A strange scent, like vanilla transports us to an exotic land where birds of paradise warble and the whippoorwill sings a lonely song.     In the muscadine wine dusk, we two souls sit...