Category Archives: Families

When His Mind Closed In

September 6, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Mental Health, Schizophrenia, Short Pieces - GTC

Our Final Days

July 16, 2012

Early on a Saturday morning in late June my stepfather, age eighty-seven and already weakening, suffered a stroke that rendered him unconscious. Inside a large hospital emergency room the only doctor on duty was too busy to look closely, so a few nurses and technicians strongly sedated him, stuck a tube down his throat [...]

Also posted in Aging, Hospitals, Marriage

Executive Jack

July 7, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Alcohol, Football, George Allen, Los Angeles, Short Pieces - GTC

Lion Family

June 18, 2012

author of “the
serengeti lion”
doesn’t understand
father ripping
cubs to death or
mother eating
their guts
Source: “Wild Things” by David Samuels in Harper’s June 2012.

Also posted in Africa, Lions, Poetry - GTC

Ugandan Birth Control

June 18, 2012

ugandan
mother
of seven
declines
birth
control
so
husband
won’t
beat
again

Also posted in Africa, Birth Control, Marriage, Uganda

The Pool Player

May 21, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Alcohol, Food, Health, Pool, Short Pieces - GTC

New Electric Razor

May 9, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Divorce, Marriage, Short Pieces - GTC

Margaret and Bill

April 28, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Homosexuals, Infidelity, Infideltiy, Marriage, Poetry - GTC, Short Pieces - GTC

Open Door

March 30, 2012

open
door
lures
boy
into
painted
room
ejected
by
howling
father

Also posted in Poetry

Protecting Women Surrealist Painters

March 18, 2012

“Security, stop that man,” I shouted at startled employees assigned to guard the distinguished collection of paintings by surrealist women currently living at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
They groped at an athletic young man sprinting by and, along with me, chased him as he ran directly to “Birthday,” a self-portrait by Dorothea Tanning. We [...]

Also posted in Art, Birds, Dorothea Tanning, Hollywood, LACMA, Marriage, Mental Health, Painters, Surrealism, World War II

Downtown Drinkers

March 14, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Alcohol, Friendship, Sex, Short Pieces - GTC

Bobby Brown – The Whole Truth

February 28, 2012

Before presenting what Bobby Brown allegedly said and did, I must explain this book was originally conceived as an autobiography and author Derrick Handspike, according to his account, hung out with and interviewed the singer for a year, diligently wrote the book, and later squirmed as Brown and his advisers delayed final preparations for publication. [...]

Also posted in Alcohol, Bobby Brown, Cocaine, Drugs, Heroin, Marriage, Music, Whitney Houston

Home and Work

February 28, 2012

Click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Employment, Housing, Marriage, Mental Health, Short Pieces - GTC

Oral Alarm Clock

February 21, 2012

deep
voice
grinds
my
name
too
early
every
morning

Also posted in Mental Health, Poetry - GTC

Big Al Allosaurus Responds to Brother – Part 2

February 11, 2012

How strange my brother accuses me of predatory incompetence and cognitive ineptitude. Let me clarify dark history with precision dear brother never practiced or understood. As youngsters he frequently tried to maim me and other siblings but I always overpowered him and rebuked with restrained bites. Our mother never disciplined him and [...]

Also posted in Allosaurus, Dinosaurs, Short Pieces - GTC

Brother Allosaurus Remembers Big Al – Part 1

February 10, 2012

I’m not jealous my brother Big Al receives much publicity a hundred fifty million years after death. In life we emerged from the same subterranean nest of a hundred allosaurus eggs and soon, following carnivorous instinct, bit, clawed, and wrestled each other, and serendipitously survived while most siblings died from illnesses or attacks by [...]

Also posted in Allosaurus, Dinosaurs

When His Mind Closed In

January 29, 2012

(This poem was rewritten in prose and posted September 6, 2012.)
i lived in box attached rear of landlord’s
house and often talked to her visiting son
jim friendly college student who usually
brought congenial girlfriend afterward
mother proudly said they were going
to marry when jim graduated which he
did after fifth year lot faster than many
congratulating mother i asked [...]

Also posted in Mental Health, Poetry - GTC, Schizophrenia

Executive Jack

January 6, 2012

Click here to read and excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Alcohol, Football, George Allen, Los Angeles, Mental Health, Poetry - GTC

Nice Meeting You

December 29, 2011

hi bill
young man said
hello replied older
have we met
not really
how’d you know name
remember mom
who
here’s picture
with you
haven’t seen
in twenty years
and nine
months

Also posted in Poetry - GTC

Margaret and Bill

December 5, 2011

Please click here to read an excerpt from “Snapshots of Distressing Events”

Also posted in Homosexuals, Infidelity, Marriage, Poetry - GTC

Proper Rest

November 6, 2011

father died from
drink but also
suffered arising early
carlos avoids that
asleep all day
mother ironing
his clothes

Also posted in Alcohol, Poetry - GTC

Daddy’s Bikini

November 5, 2011

next to
bikini
he stands
face red
as daughter’s
hair
next to
gut
she poses
smile big
as father’s
frown

Also posted in Children, Poetry - GTC

Material Handler on the Road

January 29, 2011

I still wonder if my adult working career for many years progressed like a tortoise in sand because of apathy or a reflexive hatred of manual labor that began too soon, at age nine, when my mother remarried and her new husband, a drill sergeant masquerading as an electrical engineer and contractor, drafted my stepbrother [...]

Also posted in Abraham Lincoln, Alcohol, Auburn, Babe Ruth, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Burbank, California, California Youth Authority, Carmel, Cars & Driving, Chico, Clint Eastwood, Coast Ranges, Construction, Drugs, Electricians, Errol Flynn, Frank Lloyd Wright, Fresno, George S. Patton, George Thomas Clark, Grass Valley, Hollywood, Interstate 5, Los Angeles, Manual Labor, Marijuana, Media, Mental Health, Monterey, Newspapers, Pacific Ocean, Rocklin, Rolling Stones, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, Sierra Nevada, Stephen Stills, Stockton, Television, Unions

Yuletide Traumas

January 23, 2011

One of my cousins and his wife recently emailed me a file with one hundred forty-eight color photos from their annual Christmas Eve party. The first images feature their enormous Wild West living room and, through giant windows, a sunny winter green canyon in the Calabasas background. The visual narrative then presents Y, [...]

Also posted in Calabasas, Christmas, Food, Health, Hospitals, Mushrooms, Pigs - Oscar

Edna Wallace: 1916-2009

April 1, 2009

This is a tribute I wrote for a family anthology about my Aunt Edna Wallace, whose memorial tribute is Saturday

One of my most exciting memories as a kid came when I was about 12 in the mid-1960’s and visited the Wallaces in big L.A.  I thought it was cool I had an aunt, [...]

Also posted in Aging, Death, George Thomas Clark