Wandering Wordsmith of the Clinch

If I say "apple" what picture is conjured as this word travels from these lips of mine to your cerebral netherland ?

Do you imagine a Red Delicious with crunch, firmness and juice enough to drip as you chew?

Or, do you visualize a green, Granny Smith with a tartness that brings instant salivation and makes you shudder with satisfaction ?

Perhaps, you smell apple butter, simmering in a copper kettle beneath the autumnal sun while juices are being coaxed from the skins of Jonathans, Winesaps an… Continue

We got married on Valentine's Day, so you could "remember our anniversary".

You used to drive me crazy, now you just make me that way.

I used to see pulsing, swirling shades of lavendar and periwinkle when we kissed; no color comes to grace my third eye now.

You used to pull me across the sheets and render me helpless in your embrace, now you only pull the sheet.

I used to have a dream, 'tis now a mere fantasy.

You should have known that if you needed a ho… Continue

I tried to sneak up on *Kate*.

Actually, I was looking for the sockets in her back that hold *her* wings in position, since I am confident that *she* is, at least, part *angel* ( that is why all these *stars" hang around *her*).

In my mind. I see *her* reading, pondering, rolling our words around on her tongue, digesting what is good, and discretely spitting out in her napkin the words that aren't so tasty.

*Kate*, akin to the guardian angel we are all promised at birth, resides here.

I coul… Continue

As I drove home from the university, snaking my way down Coeburn mountain, I saw her.

She was walking around the track, hair to her waist, wearing a skirt, tennis shoes, and a jacket.

The temperature outside was 29 degrees and falling, or so said my intelligent car.

I am puzzled by your devotion to literalism and to the preacher man who tells you what to do and how to do it; the way you think your long hair is a glory unto you, the way you wear what the preacher man tells you to wear even if… Continue

She had dug deep, anchored what was to come, intended to add the "Holy Trinity" of dimension, breadth, and depth to her life construction.... here a stone, then another.

This night, however, it occurred to her that she had been assisted by other masons.

Often, they had reviewed her work and deemed it fine, "Let 'er stand!"

But in other, more disassembling, moments they had rearranged, and even removed, her handiwork before the mortar "set".

She had heard their chisels... pinging, reverberati… Continue