I’m very happy to share here that The Piker Press published another one of my poems today. Its title is “As Silver as the Stars You Tried to Rival,” and you can find it right here.
The Piker Press community is a terrific place for storytellers, poets and artists. As always, I’m grateful to Editor Sand Pilarski for allowing me to share there.
“Rain and umbrella.” Etching.
(Nah, just having a little more fun with photo filters. These are edited shots of Fair View Cemetery in Roanoke, December 2019.)
Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if for cold it hap to die,
We’ll bury ‘t in a Christmas pie,
And evermore be merry.
― George Wither
Photo credit: By James Petts from London, England – Baubles, Liberty of London, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34999538
“Lady of the Swans.” Etching, aquatint and drypoint.
“Independence Day” was THE move that everyone was talking about in the summer of 1996. It was the year’s highest-grossing film and it dominated the box office for three weeks straight. It was an event. It was a lot like “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” (1991) or “Jurassic Park” (1993) before it — it was a sci-fi spectacle with special effects that were so groundbreaking at the time that it was a topic for conversation at parties. Did you see it? Did you see it? (The internet wasn’t quite a thing yet in 1996 for the average person; not a single person I knew chatted about movies online.)
I think it’s held up really well after 23 years, and this movie still has a dedicated fanbase. Even it special effects are still decent by modern standards. Sure, it feels a little corny. But the climactic aerial dogfight at the end still looks great and it really works for me.
Oil on canvas.
Amazon has the pin at left advertised as a “Harry Potter” character, but I immediately saw R. J. MacReady from John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982).
“On static medicine.” Engraving.
It’s the secret to happiness, really.
And I love this little Yuletide doodad.
