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News Tip.

t has been exactly one year since I began displaying my poetry on the public sidewalk in front of Hruska’s Kolaches on Center Street in downtown Provo.  Mostly because the foot traffic in the mornings is good, and because it is within walking distance of our apartment (I have mobility issues and sometimes use a wheelchair.) I write my haiku or senryu on a whiteboard and then put the whiteboard on a small tripod right in front of my wheelchair.  Next to the sign I place a small red bowl, in case anyone wants to show appreciation for my work with a cash donation. I make it a practice not to start any conversations, but if people want to talk to me I am happy to answer any of their questions. As I say – I’ve been doing this for a full year, with no complaints from anyone.  In fact, one of Hruska’s managers paid me to write a poem about their business. Many people nod, smile, and wave at me – including dozens of police officers from the nearby Provo Police Department. So imagine my surpri
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Haiku: trapped in the mirror

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  trapped in the mirror -- in a flimsy kimono -- not my best profile.    
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Today's Diary. Tuesday. April 16. 2024

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  Diary. Tuesday. April 16. 2024 Woke up at 610 this morning with a headache and sore neck. We didn’t get to sleep last night until after midnight, which always leaves me a wreck the next day. So I didn’t get a proper haiku written. Instead I just took out my handy dandy ‘poet for hire’ sign to the kolache bakery from 7 until 11.  Today’s haul was 40 bucks.  I was pretty proud of myself for bringing in that much until I talked to daughter Madel, who told me that grandson Deisel made $400 last night doing doordash for just a few hours.  I guess I’m in the wrong bizness. I was hired to write one poem by a professional photographer and artist (that’s what her bizness card said, anyway.) About loving yourself and the life around you.  Here is what ChatGPT produced: In the glow of dawn's first light, where dreams are spun so bright,   There lies a whispered promise, in the morning's gentle sight.   Each day unfurls like petals, in a dance of bold and new,   Believe in your own power
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Today's Diary. Thrusday April 11. 2023

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  I've given up on postcards. I like to create them and send them to real live people, but like you say the price is getting ridiculous. Besides, postal art no longer fits into my Life Triangle. I wrote it down and shared it with Amy after General Conference last Sunday.  It looks like this (you have to draw in the lines from one subject to the next to get the geometric figure of a triangle):                                                                  Christ/Temple work Amy/our marriage/our family                                                                                                         My Poetry. If something doesn't fit one of the three points of the triangle, then it's of little importance to me and I'm not going to spend much time and effort on it.  (Of course there's always the meals I'm cooking/baking -- but I keep trying to eliminate that from my life and replace it with going to the Temple more often with Amy -- she would g
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Poet or Panhandler?

  So i started out as a clown/panhandler back in 2012 in Washington DC, when i got laid off. I’d spent 20 years as a circus clown, then worked in an office. Then got laid off. So out of desperation i put on my clown makeup and outfit and scripted a crude sign on poster paper that read: UNEMPLOYED CIRCUS CLOWN. PLEASE PUT ME IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHERE I BELONG! (Photos Welcome.) I made about sixty bucks a day. Only hassled by the Capitol Hill cops once. Tourists disgorged from their tour buses to snap my photo by the hundreds. Fast forward to 2023. Living in Provo Utah. i’d been writing limericks and haiku and posting it on social media, where it caught the eye of a local TV news reporter. He did a piece on my work. Then my wife Amy got the idea I should advertise out on the street. So i did. Got a few assignments. Then AI took over the writing of poetry. (And if you don’t believe me, well . . . time will tell.) So i decided to write an original poem every day, put it on a white board, an
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assumptions

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  so i'm out with my whiteboard haiku this morning in front of Hruska's kolaches on center street in provo. there's a good long line waiting to get into the squat little bakery for a bacon, egg, and cheese bun. my poem today reads:   "i want to breathe --  so i can laugh -- and so i can cry."   nothing in the poem to suggest i'm suffering some kind of spiritual crisis, or indicate that -- in the middle of provo, utah, and clean-shaven and sober and not reeking of tobacco -- I am not a Church member. yet out of the blue a young man comes up to me offering a blue back copy of The Book of Mormon. He asks hopefully: "Would you like to have a copy of this?" since there is a five dollar bill clearly stuck in it, i take it and thank him politely. on the flyleaf is inscribed:   "This Book has helped me when I was down. It gave me peace, hope when nothing else would.  I know Jesus lives and loves you.                                             Eric.&quo
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I saw the heavens falling

      I saw the heavens falling Beneath the wings of fate. The angels all were weeping, WIth cherubs small and great. I asked them: “What doth ail thee?? And sadly they replied: “When evil men take office The Devil’s glorified!” Be patient, then, my people, Methought I heard on high. The fair-haired wickedness that leers Is not your Adonai. I will return betimes to rule When hearts to Me draw nigh.
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