© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Jingle Bells was written as a Thanksgiving song by James Lord Pierpont in the autumn of 1850 in a tavern in Medford, Massachusetts, a town popular for its sleigh races. Dashing through the snow In a one-horse open sleigh … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Chico, a graffiti artist, recently graced the sidewalk with a rattlesnake. It’s such a friendly looking snake I don’t feel dread or danger walking over it. “Will it bite me?” is a question someone with a guilty conscience might … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Saint Jerome’s translation of the Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapter 2, verse 14 is a direct translation from the original Greek: Gloria in altissimus Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis, Glory to God in the highest and … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… … Sandpiper The roaring alongside he takes for granted, and that every so often the world is bound to shake. He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward, in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake. … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I scanned 30 drawings that Akram drew thinking people might like looking at them. Akram never drew anything before I gave him a sketchbook with some pens and pencils to help him relax while he studied for his medical … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Last Monday morning I told myself that I was going to write a sonnet over the week completing three lines a day ending with two lines on Friday. Each morning I’d write and post them on Facebook with short videos … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… One night at the Ukranian bar across from St Marks after a poetry reading, Gregroy Corso and I argued about who was the better poet, Shelley or Keats. Gregory thought Shelley was better because according to him Shelley represented … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I was looking for the little chapbook, Pomes Penyeach, by James Joyce that I bought in the seventies at Middle Earth Books in Philly, but I can’t find it. I really have had a hankering for the Pomes. This … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… As swallows swoop above the boat begins To move although all of us people here Stay still hearing the horn announce we have Let go. The leaves of the rooted bamboo Bend and sway. Mountains go back and further … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I love and yet have mixed feelings about a poem by Emily Dickinson, but it doesn’t stop me from using it in a poetry lesson for students who are learning the English language. I let the class memorize the … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… July 22, 2011 The crown on the Statue of Liberty is 110 and they’re not letting the tourists in. How hot is it? My friend Jeff fried an egg on the sidewalk. The sweat forms like ticklish snails growing … Continue reading
© 2011 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Late June 2009. Opening my hotel door in Inverness, there was Michael Jackson looking up at me from the morning paper. I’d been thinking about breakfast and a boat ride over the deep Loch Ness. In July, back in the … Continue reading