This is a place for me to share words. Books, stories, poetry, or any other combination of words that moves or inspires me. Some will be beautiful. Some will be funny. Most will be from others, but I might share a few of my own from time to time. Thanks for reading. Enjoy!

I will kick off my first post with a piece from one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins; and because it is somewhat cynical, I’ll conclude with one of my own cynical (okay, vitriolic) pieces.

Creatures

by Billy Collins

Hamlet noticed them in the shapes of clouds,

but I saw them in the furniture of childhood,

creatures trapped under surfaces of wood,

one submerged in a polished sideboard,

one frowning from a chair-back,

another howling from my mother’s silent bureau,

locked in the grain of maple, frozen in oak.

I would see these presences, too,

in a swirling pattern of wallpaper

or in the various greens of a porcelain lamp,

each looking so melancholy, so damned,

some peering out at me as if they knew

all the secrets of a secretive boy.

Many times I would be daydreaming

on the carpet and one would appear next to me,

the oversize nose, the hollow look.

So you will understand my reaction

this morning at the beach

when you opened your hand to show me

a stone you had picked up from the shoreline.

“Do you see the face?” you asked

as the cold surf circled our bare ankles.

“There’s the eye and the line of the mouth,

like it’s grimacing, like it’s in pain.”

“Well, maybe that’s because it has a fissure

running down the length of its forehead

not to mention a kind of twisted beak,” I said,

taking the thing from you and flinging it out

over the sparkle of blue waves

so it could live out its freakish existence

on the dark bottom of the sea

and stop bothering innocent beachgoers like us,

stop ruining everyone’s summer.

The Beach

by Leigh Hunter Morris

Where are you going?

You can’t walk on me forever,

plodding along in denial;

you have worn away my skin.

Yet your feet dig deeper,

grasping for a grain of sense

among my shattered bones.

You just keep treading-

treasuring fleeting thoughts

you call tranquility,

relentlessly pursuing an essence

that evades you.

Look back and see your footprints disappear-

your solace here is only an illusion.

You are really a coward

seeking a horizon

that will still find you

lost.

Take me in,

but I will not breathe

life into your lungs-

you fool!

Your flow is still of crimson

and mine is blue as death;

yet you clutch my core

like the last piece of driftwood in a storm.

I know you think I can heal you,

but I am not your cure,

just your bitter pill-

a placebo for your soul.

I abhor you

and your shallow search for my spirit.

Yet to every step

you attach sentimentality.

Can’t you see my spewing, salty temptation

is really spit?

It is not lather, it is loathing,

a rabid foaming at the mouth.

My anger pools around you

and you wade right through it,

never knowing I could simply swallow you, wash through you

with a drink of self-awareness.

But you wouldn’t like the taste-

you would rather sip on me

until you thirst to death.