The trouble with the present is, you can’t get rid of it, it’s the cloud
always above each of us, sometimes it rains, sometimes not. The past is a little man
in Bermuda shorts, black socks and penny loafers outside a motel room trying to
describe what’s going on inside. And the future is the storm we walk into without
galoshes or an umbrella. In the present, a beautiful woman wakes and checks if she
is still beautiful. I wake and check to see if I am. Or if this apartment, too small
to swing a cat in, is heaven and God is on the patio telling jokes.
—Previously published in the San Diego Poetry Annual 2017-18 (Garden Oak Press, in association with the San Diego Entertainment & Arts Guild [SDEAG]; February 2018); appears here with permissions from the poet and the publisher
describes himself as a writer who has integrated his poetry with his business life for decades. “Now, three wives deep, four children long, and assorted careers past,” he continues to study, publish, and write in San Diego, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2016 at San Diego State University. His writing appears in such venues as Alaska Quarterly Review, Eclipse, Serving House Journal, Spitball Magazine, Soundings East, and The San Diego Reader. Awards include a nomination for a Pushcart Prize, and an Honorable Mention in San Diego CityBeat’s Fiction 101 Contest. In addition, his collection of poems Miss Desert Inn won the Main Street Rag Poetry Prize in 2015. He currently hosts the (Not) Dead (Yet) Poet’s Society with Anna DiMartino at San Diego Writers, Ink.