What a Christmas present for a retired bookseller! The gracious individuals who know me well sent this magnificent tapestry just before Christmas. I took it down to the pool and hung it up in the locker room to photograph the details.
It was woven in the Blueridge Mountains of North Caroline by an [...]

Tongue 10 from Laurel Reed Books is out in all its profundity and entertainment. This brilliant 26 page starkly black & white chapbook begins with a quote from Joe Louis on the inside page: “Everyone has a plan until they get hit.”

Much of the text is Letterplay. There’s a proper poetic [...]

This is the hem of my red dress and the holly decorations I fastened to my green rubber shoes with two-sided tape for the last Christmas push. I wore them to lead the singing of my peace & justice carols down at city hall on Friday, the day before Christmas Eve.
On [...]

Tune: Silver Bells
City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks
Been replaced by the mall
Where the parking’s just awful and ba-ad
Fights will break out
Cops are called out
O the mall is the place
Where corporations all strut their stuff!
O their malls
They appall
Nothing about them says Christmas
Only ding-a-lings bring
Themselves to shop there today
2) If you must shop
Then you should shop
Craft shows, church bazares
Where [...]

Tune: Have A Holly Jolly Christmas
O the Grinch has joined our Christmas
Just like Frosty, Rudoph, Scrooge
Characters from TV specials
Ah, the cast is getting huge
Homer Simpson’s in the lineup
Wearing Santa’s hat with glee
Christmas is more confusing now
From the way it used to be
O ho the media
Got ahold of you & me
It’s those animated specials
Hoggine my TV
2) [...]

O come all ye fearful
Fretful about Christmas
O come ye
O come ye
To reason once again
Come and behold them
All the TV specials
That say it isn’t presents
Or everything just perfect
But who you are and what you do
That mak-kes the day
2)O Sing a little bet-ter
Christmas isn’t madness
All stressed out and chewing out
Your loved ones around
Your TV has nailed it
Calm [...]

Tune: Joy To The World
What is the source of Christmas stress?
Why must things be this way?
It’s from the media, modeling
Illusory enobling
That we must get it right
No room for Christmas blight
Till your nerves and my nerves
Are strung too tight!
V2 No more let Christmas stress abound
Nor sorrow fill the air
We do the best we can
A holiday to [...]

Tune: Jingle Bells
A fir tree’s in the house
Just ask the dog or cat
Who heartily approve the move
A tree is where it’s at
Pup raises up a leg
Cat perches very high
It’s obviously their Christmas tree
And not for you or I
CHORUS O noses tell
A holiday smell
So much stuff to sniff
goodies, guests and fur tree whiffs
These smells their Christmas [...]

Tune: O Little Town Of Bethlehem
O little pets within our home
Why can’t we sleep in some?
Why must you think that 5AM
Means breakfast time has come?
We don’t neglect your feeding
But in this world of woe
More pillowtime at Christmastime
Is just the way to go!
v2 O pets for whom my house is run
Indeed my life is too
Our walks [...]

Twelve Steps Song
(Google this tune on youtube – very singable)
Tune: Dwelling In Beulah Land (Old Gospel)
1) I admit I can’t control
The life I have been living
But a Higher Power exists
To take my life in hand.
Admitting I am helpless here,
I look for strength to go on.
As the universe unfolds,
I learn to stand.
CHORUS I’ve living every day [...]