SOMETIMES

I write when the bottom is sinking in again
and the Snafu rises to the surface.
Sometimes writing a poem has the effect of
sucking all the Bad out, and diluting the poison.

I write when the mania has taken control
and after the screams have subsided
or are drowned out by the deep silent sobs
and the shuddering fibers of my thundering heart.

I write when there is no other way to speak
when the words refuse to be dragged
from their pages where they are neatly shelved
hidden shyly behind thoughts and whims.

I write when I am alone, not forgotten
as much as being un-present, invisible at night,
lonely and merely outside of my realm of being
lost and quite unaware of existence.

I write when in a crowded room of laughter and jest
…a make-believe woman far from magical dream scenes,
waiting quietly for something unknown…

I have always been a writer.  At age twelve, more or less, I wrote a novel.  Although I don’t recall any details of the plot, or characterization,  I do remember a name…Joyce Reena Phane.   That was to be my pen name, I believe.  To me that name was beautiful, and the very essence of sophistication.   I was quite proud of my novel, such as it was, and when my aunt asked to read it I was delighted.   Aunt Jada was a writer herself, and was working on a novel dealing with a group of Kent State students during the Vietnam War.  She loved my novel, and was impressed enough to talk with her sister, my mother, about it.

That was the end of that.    My mother was a very practical and down-to-earth woman, whose no-nonsense beliefs had no room for frivolous or non-productive pursuits.   As…

When one of my daughters was about ten, her school bus came later than those of the other kids, so she and I had half an hour or so one-on-one time.  I loved to make up stories, and some of my best (maybe) ideas came at that time.   This means fiction…since I was a working newspaper reporter and writer at the time I was writing other types of material —news stories, police reports, obits, motor vehicle crashes, city meeting coverage— when I wasn’t making up far-out stories.

The story I am referring to was about a tiny slug that landed on a patch of grass, and was saved from trampling by a group of scuffling boys by a young girl named Fonzie McElroy.   Turned out the Slug was no other than Prince Rehebal, of some distant planet that was left behind on an exploratory visit to Earth.   To fast-forward the…