I’ve polished many of the stories (and now two poems) to such an extent that I feel comfortable launching a new domain and website.
Are you curious?
Many of these short stories might seem a bit different. Some are happy, some are sad . . . most are a shifting mixture. I try to arrive at essential truths in surprising and creative ways. Human life is illuminated using sudden revelations. All of these works of fiction are very quick reads.
The poem I just published, A Brief Note, sounds dire as you read it. But read to the final two lines.
Anyway, I truly appreciate all of you who follow my adventures in photography–and creative writing! Life is a continuing journey . . .
Every morning brings unending moments captured in mind.
I encountered some poetic street art while walking up C Street this morning. Halfway to the top of Golden Hill, I paused.
An electrical box was painted with fading scraps of thoughtful poetry. As we walk we find ourselves in surprising places. Forgive my translation of Julio Cortázar.
We walked without looking for ourselves – but knowing that we walked to find ourselves. Your smile is the moon of my life.Each night rises — the passage of time–Your heroes are always with you.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
I believe I finally got it right. My latest short story. For a while it seemed wrong, incomplete.
Returning the Ball is a happy story about youth, youthful optimism, and a heart’s gratitude.
This quick read is likely to make you smile. Perhaps even wipe a tear. Click the above link to read it.
Need something to read this Labor Day? I’ve gradually built a collection of short stories (and a poem) at my blog Short Stories by Richard. These small works of fiction are ideal for a beach read. Or half an hour by the pool.
Enjoy your day and thank you for supporting Cool San Diego Sights! I plan to head up to Balboa Park! What will I discover today? I don’t know!
A broken chain at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
These photos taken at the Maritime Museum of San Diego tell a story. It’s that never-ending tale of human struggle against the elements.
Rope and chain. Ancient inventions.A tale of human struggle against the elements.Waiting for an outstretched hand, a critical moment.An anchor above calm water.Instruments of control in a stormy world. Rope, chain and anchor.Life clings to chains. Rust devours chains.A strained connection.Necessary chains. Rusty chains large and small.Human endeavor.Ropes cast aside, perhaps hurriedly.Ordered ropes, to harness gusts above.New strength.Bent steel, neat coils, in a tangle of untouchable dark shadows.Worm, Parcel and Serve! A never-ending story of human ambition, battling water, sun, salt and wind.Tarring at the museum.New bonds, prepared.A strange sculpture, or a potent symbol.A wrestle.
This is a story of struggle with many pages. The unconquerable antagonist in every chapter is Time.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
We read to know we are not alone. Wise words inscribed in the San Diego Central Library’s large, friendly Reading Room.
Many wise words are digested by hungry minds at the San Diego Public Library. At the Central Library in downtown San Diego, wise sayings and phrases are inscribed upon the building itself. One must simply open eyes to find inspiration.
The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.If there’s a book you really want to read but hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.We will be known forever by the tracks we leave. A San Diego Trolley heads down tracks past some wisdom written on the east side of the downtown public library.Yo que me figuraba el paraiso bajo la especie de una biblioteca. From Poem of the Gifts, by Jorge Luis Borges . . . I who had always thought of Paradise in form and image as a library . . .It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.Words inscribed on steps leading to the San Diego Central Library. A portion of Maya Angelou’s On the Pulse of Morning, a poem read during the 1993 Presidential Inauguration.
Women, children, men, take it into the palms of your hands, mold it into the shape of your most private need. Sculpt it into the image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances for new beginning.
A trolley heads down Park Boulevard past a series of wise sayings and phrases concerning books, libraries and the written word.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
The five members of The Mightier P.E.N.S. perform poetry in Balboa Park’s Zoro Garden during this summer’s 2016 Garden Theatre Festival.
Look what I stumbled upon this afternoon during my stroll through Balboa Park! The Mightier P.E.N.S. (Poetic Expeditionary Nation of Semanticists) was performing poetry in the Zoro Garden. Balboa Park’s butterfly-filled stone grotto is the venue for a variety of poetic and theatrical performances during the Garden Theatre Festival, Saturdays and Sundays through August 21st.
I listened as the five members of The Mightier P.E.N.S. filled the air with mightily expressed emotion, striking deep chords with their words. As butterflies flitted about the garden, like beguiling not-quite-touchable-truths in the shimmering air, their spoken words conveyed an entire range of deep feeling, including human desire, elation, frustration and despair.
This energetic group of performance poets can be heard around San Diego from time to time; they appeared at the most recent San Diego Fringe Festival. They’ll be performing twice more this summer in Balboa Park. Interested? Swing by the Zoro Garden on August 14th and 21nd at 2pm. Their poetry is mightier than the sharpest sword! For further information, you can call (619) 569-4922.
While I innocently sit back and listen, I’m suddenly accosted by unabashed truths spoken during an innovative poetry performance!Visitors to Balboa Park pause near the top of Zoro Garden and listen to The Mightier P.E.N.S. conquer the world . . . for a fleeting moment.One of the dynamic poets expresses innermost thoughts, desires and anguish with strong words and images pieced brilliantly together.A small crowd gathered where I was seated. As each poet completed a segment of the performance, applause erupted.The Mightier P.E.N.S. appear to be mighty friends. No words required.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Magic before your eyes. A wind-stretched red sail on sparkling San Diego Bay.
Dancing sails and colorful banners reflected upon water are magic. Tilting, shining, billowing, flowing, taut, wind-driven, powerful, gentle, mysterious, magical.
Color painted on canvas is art. But dancing color upon water has strange profound depth. It’s the merging of wind and water; of light and substance. Swelling, vibrating. It has a heartbeat.
I heard no sound as a large sailboat approached.It’s USA 11, the Stars and Stripes. This America’s Cup racing yacht competed in 1992. She can be chartered for sailing adventures.The sail stretches a hundred feet into the blue sky. Dancing in sunshine, turning on the water.Magic white sails on a blue bay. The city of San Diego is near, but far away.Even small sails need care. They will work powerful magic, take you where you will.Lone dark form upon gray water. A strange apparition.Reflections of flags at stern of USS Midway dance upon still water.Colorful banners moved by a wild wind. Like strange, silent dreams in the liquid blue.Unending dreams.Adjusting a magic sail as one boat moves forward in space.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk! You can enjoy more Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
People walk down a Hillcrest sidewalk past chalk street art dreams.
Human dreams are wildly varied and ever-changing. I saw proof of this in Hillcrest. Dozens of desires have been documented at a street corner on University Avenue, written in chalk on what appears to be a very large chalkboard. People passing by have paused for a moment to write what they would like to accomplish before they die.
This dynamic neighborhood, just north of downtown San Diego, is youthful and worldly. Those who’ve chosen to contribute to this participative street art have listed many dreams. Some are crude, some are desperate, some are erased. Some are possible, some are impossible. Some are profound. The absurd and the serious mingle together. Some dreams are mere whims, other dreams are ambitious. Some are selfish, some are unselfish.
Before I die I want to… Hunt mud ducks. Feel I am worthy.Save the world. Make love. Visit Paris. Meet my biological parents.Publish a book. Drink one more drink.Find hidden treasure. Find Waldo.People walk toward Alibi as they review reasons for living.
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Walking on the beach north of the Imperial Beach pier.
Nothing feels more perfect than a long walk. A long, easy walk to anywhere.
No matter which path feet follow, which direction your head turns, to walk is to feel refreshingly alive.
With every step, the world’s infinite complexity is revealed page by page. When eyes are open and the mind is keen, the strides are through endless wonder.
That first step. That deep, expansive breath of new air. The stretching out of limbs. A touch of warmth or chill on your face. Eyes lifted to the horizon, expectant.
Joy mounting with every stride as senses register a million familiar proofs of the world’s essential beauty.
The smells from near and far. Mown grass, the salty ocean, rain-wet asphalt, piney hills, a jasmine bush on a corner, sun-baked dirt, perfume from a cafe.
Kaleidoscope visions through which you simply, happily flow. The infinite detail of reflected light, dazzling your eyes. Patterns of leaves. Patterns of shadow. Patterns of neighbors and bustle and streets. The patterns of humanity.
And every gradation of daylight. Every blue and every green that nature supplies. A complete riot of color on painted things. Rainbows on buildings, signs, cars, jackets, socks. The whole spectrum of color, if only you see it. A trillion, trillion buzzing atoms encompass you, if only you see them. The awesome visual geometry of angles, form and depth. It’s all before and around you.
The smallest object encountered during a thoughtful walk is a self-contained universe. Even a lone bit of windblown trash is beautiful, in perhaps a thousand different ways. With a microscope you couldn’t unravel its potent mysteries. Who made it? How was it made? Where did it come from, and where’s it headed? For a moment the walker shares the world closely with surprising and mysterious companions: a bird, a grasshopper, a motorist, another walker. We all travel alone but together, encountering our own unique wonders, creating through sheer muscle and chance our historic voyages of discovery.
I want to go exploring today. I suppose I’ll just start out my door.
Got to put on my shoes… Bye!
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