Posts by John Blase

In defense of whatever happens next you should know I cannot go long without the company of stars and solitude. That is not the way I recharge my batteries because I was not born with batteries. It is the way I divine, like some men witch water. My body stirs at the earth’s nobility, and…

Sometimes you need to hear the sound of something before agreeing to another long day in the mines. This morning that sound was the song of the rooster next door that my neighbor thought at first was a hen. Surprise, surprise, surprise. The boy is off a bit due to the time change but his…

Yesterday I kept feeling tender toward myself. Time after time I’d find tears in the eyes I see with washing my vision clean as to what will endure. Before I closed those eyes to sleep I rededicated my life to good. It will not matter how I am buried – casket, cremation, charioted away in…

You are the lights of the everyday world.   Signs that goodness is not destined to be defeated.   But to shine you must daily, Jacob-like, grapple with God.   Refuse to let go every time. Every time wrest the wounding   heat from his hands so you can  flare the old words worn smooth…

To lose a sense of sin may be the greatest want. The blooming actor who misses her marks unaware is forgiven, there will be another take. Yet in that scene the play was pained for someone or something on that local horizon needed her and she was not there. If she is serious she senses…

No man told me how slapped I would feel in the wake of his abrupt exodus for college. You bleed for eighteen quick years doing what you pray is right by a boy   then just like that he’s gone and his room sits ashamed. Wasn’t it just weeks ago there were five chairs around…

Walk the narrow way of the severely astonished. Bumble around mouth agape at the sheer gift of the earth mumbling Wouldja look at that? Acknowledge everyone and I mean everyone whose path is crossed for they like you like me erupted from God’s hangover after five days of hard partying. Hum Song Sung Blue in…

“the present is a wild season, not a ruse.” ~ Gerald Vizenor   And so begins this present wildness. Autumn will speak her mind in tones to cause us all to hurt for home. Such is her irreverent splendor. Such is her symphony of disappointing joy. Such is the curtained ache she leaves, telling us…

The poet notices the world’s curves. The anti-poet is blind to all but lines missing out on carousels at county fairs and the roll of a foolish trout, missing out on a woman’s hips at dawn and the tracks beneath God’s wobbly train of justice.        

The poet notices the world’s curves. The anti-poet is blind to all but lines missing out on carousels at county fairs and the roll of a foolish trout, missing out on a woman’s hips at dawn and the tracks beneath God’s wobbly train of justice.