Life Poems, Personal

Life poems, personal. Is there any poetry that is not personal to the poet? Probably not, but there are poems we write that look at certain long undusted shelves in our private libraries . . . those are the pieces that feel false under another category than 'personal.'. .

. . . and these are mine.

• A Prayer for Rain
  Finding a place of personal magic and hoping it won't change.
• About Italians
  No one has to agree with me about this, it's just a personal prejudice.
• Bitchin' 'Bout the Past
  Nostalgia ought to be the name of my home town, because I spend so much time there.
• Bremen
  A city sometimes unexpectedly charms me, feeling as comfortable as an old sweater.
• Bricks
  The luxury of idle contemplation is a new and very valuable experience.
• Cartoonist
  Lamenting over Bill Watterson's retirement, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes . . . my kid-life drawn by a stranger.
• Cathedrals
  Inside St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, a project 600 years in the building . . . six hundred years . . .
• Celebrity
  Deconstruction is very hip, so why not deconstruct celebrity?
• Ceske Vanoce
  Christmas out-of-country is special in all the ways you never expect.
• Combination
  Indigestion, personal and global.
• Damn that Noah
  Only when you're alone does the entire world seem to be paired, holding hands.
• Digging Ditches
  Hmmmm . . . a little scrambled metaphor here but everyone, writer or ditch digger needs his own small slice of recognition.
• Ernie
  Awareness sneaks up on childhood, not with little cat feet, but with a moth's attraction to destruction.
• Flight to Suburbs
  How far away do we have to be and does it matter and who is watching anyway?
• Flying South
  My first New Year's Eve in Prague, alone and watching, still with a stranger's perspective. One of my favorite place poems.
• Following Clouds
  Prague has spectacular storms, as seen from my 5th floor window in the section called Zizkov.
• A Harley in my Dreams
  It would be nice, but all these dreams were actualized on the seat of a vintage Czech Jawa 250.
• Here and There
  It seems my whole life was preparatory to leaving America to live in Europe and yet it's such a singular experience that only one in a thousand would even know what I mean.
• Honey in the Woods
  Convergence, the unusual and sometimes-never-known essence of a life in perfect pitch---if even for a moment.
• Hope of Snow
  Christmas is the hardest time to be alone.
• In Czech
  The improbabilities of Slavic language.
• Lightening the Load
  Traveling light is a new experience when you've lead a collector's life.
• Magic Click
  Yeah, when it's working it works.
• Nigglement
  Looking all too carefully at something without form and trying to give it shape, when its charm is illusion.
• Night People
  Of which I am not one and yet all day-poeple secretly admire and wish to be nocturnal.
• Of a Morning
  We can no more believe in the face we're given than in our recorded voice . . . both seem to belong to someone else.
• Sudden Illness
  Not to worry, I'm all right . . . it's the water's gone to hell and the toilet's got but one flush.
• Take it Quickly
  The panic of signing that first flat lease in a strange country where you know no one and don't speak the language.
• Walking Separately
  Yeah old buddy, reach down and unsnap my leash.
• Who Will Save Me Now?
  Reflecting on the poverty of a writer's life, a much heralded but little understood reality.