It’s a New Dawn, a New Day…

The Coffeebeat Cafe™ (which is not really trademarked), as a make-believe place wherein I hold onto my creative experience, is expanding

Wait, hang on—here’s my logo, for effect:

Pow! Look at that! An honest-to-goodness logo…

Anyway, we’re expanding our imaginary cafe to include a Substack, which is, from now on, how I’ll be handing my newsletter. And the newsletter will be focused on my future projects as well as—get this—be published on a weekly basis, with new content (ie, poems, never before seen short works, …like that) each time.

I know, I know. How can you possibly handle all this change? First global warming, now this?

Well, don’t worry. It’s all already been taken care of. You just sit back and enjoy the stuff and business. That’s how we roll.

Tonight Is The Day My Mother Dies

She sleeps in folds of thin sheets and thicker meds—
After twenty-four, then twelve more
hours of no food or water. Like two friends jogging,
her body stops to wait for her flagging spirit, redeeming no breath.

From the sidelines at home, I wait for the call.
Halfway ‘tween fear and relief, I don’t go to bed.
I stay up: listening to whistling snow, sounding like songs sung to us kids;
watching shows we might have watched, had she wanted more.

In the empty chill of a person’s final winter, too cold and tired is regret,
‘cause suddenly it’s midnight. And the day has arrived anyway.
And all I have done is miss the dream of a happier death.