Cold Mountain Review Selects “Speech Therapy”

I’m extremely pleased that Cold Mountain Review has selected my essay, Speech Therapy for publication in its 2022 Spring/Summer issue. It is the first essay from my work-in-progress memoir, currently titled The Historical Heart. Speech Therapy explores the psychological and emotional ramifications of being born with a cleft palate. I thank the editors of Cold […]

K’in Selects “Opportunities for Stillness”

My poem, “Opportunities for Stillness” was selected by the editors at K’in to be included in their fall issue #8. I was thrilled as this is a poem centered on my recovery from triple bypass surgery and is part of a broader chapbook called “The Historical Heart.” Check it out here! https://kinliteraryjournal.com/poetry-schabarum-issue-8

Bruce Springsteen and Me

Lately, you’ve read some of my poems detailing the struggle I’ve had over the year with recovering from a heart attack, my triple bypass, gall bladder surgery and pancreatitis. It was a full year of not knowing if I’d ever feel good again, or work doing what I love, or being able to do the […]

Poetry at Spinnaker Bay, Hillman City

This weekend marks the first time I’ll be reading in public for a year. It also marks the anniversary, of sorts, of my journey with heart disease, triple bypass and recovery. I’ll be reading The Heart Cycle, a series of poems about the experience. It has been an extraordinary year, which culminated in pancreatitis and […]

Published Poems from See America

I’m very happy to report that two poems from my 16 poem suite, See America, have been published very recently. The Final Drive, Seattle 2015 was published in the Fall/Winter issue of Crab Creek Review. Check our their website here: http://www.crabcreekreview.org West Hollywood to Pasadena, CA, 1998 was published in the Pontoon section of Floating Bridge […]

A Wonderful Review for Airstreaming

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a great guy in our Airstream through Airbnb. He stayed a week and unbeknownst to me downloaded Airstreaming to his Kindle. He left this note for me the night before he left and it was wonderful to receive. Again, this is why I write – to give amazing experiences […]

Confidence

Six years ago, at the beginning of Fall on the cusp of turning 50, and after a summer in which all confidence was beginning to abandon me in many areas of my life, I put together a selection of poems and sent them out in the world. I had not attempted to publish anything for eight […]

Hubris

I never want to know the many things they did when they flayed open my chest, my arm, cracked my sternum and stopped my heart. Blissful ignorance is what I needed, and some drugs, buckets of them. I was reminded too much of salmon, gutted torsos, lungs, heart, parts. But that’s how they do, these magicians, these […]

The Historical Heart

Remembering everything, the heart, at last, breaks. At first, in the undulating folds as my fetus came together the cleft separated, a misaligned heart began, beating days upon days. It remembered the fall, and mother carrying me to hospital, the salt-air summers in Balboa – running full ‘round the boardwalk. The heart worked hard during […]

Selma and the Case Against the Oscars

I’m a 53 year old white guy living in one of the most diverse zip codes in the country. 98118. I love this zip code. I love the people in it. I love that, for the most part, we live harmoniously among each other despite our differences, despite our country’s lack of tolerance for diversity […]