MORTALITY & Other Hassles

About the Book

Let’s face it: mortality is a hassle. Why else would the countless myths of how to evade it have been concocted? My own confrontation with it is traced in this book.

What happens when an aging poet, in robust health and physically active his entire life, is hit with multiple medical traumas? He will write poems about them, of course. I don’t believe Milton’s claim that poetry can make “a Heaven of Hell [and] a Hell of Heaven,” but poetry can make hell more endurable and heaven metaphorically plausible.

These poems are exercises in self-therapy, to fight off depression and . At times dark but not despairing, they are anthems to life and declarations of love for my wife of nearly 60 years– whose own skills as a poet-editor made this volume much better. - from the Introduction

Within

To live within
your fear.

To live within
your sorrow.

To live within
your hope.

To live within
your love for her.

To live within
whatever comes

with the morning sun.

About the Author