It’s only mid-morning, and I’m already hopelessly behind on thanking wonderful friends for your birthday greetings. Whoever is reading this and smiling to themselves, I feel your heart and I truly appreciate you touching in. Thank you for being part of my life which, given my bumptious lack of judgment and planning, has already been … [more]
SHITBIRD
26-November-2025 by 3 Comments
Your United States military is a many-splendored institution built on centuries of bright honor and revered tradition. If it’s also got its skeletons and missteps, you may want to kindly squint past that. Serving under arms is a harder path than most Americans want to walk and if you’re not one of them, then sit … [more]
Of Balancing Affliction Scales, and Numbering the Beast
18-November-2025 by 4 Comments
A signal inclusion is the enumerated interrogation of discomfort: “What’s your pain number?”
Memorex
26-May-2025 by Leave a Comment
I’m not the vet whisperer. I’m not here to tell you how to live, and I’m definitely not here to tell you how to weekend. Occasionally, well-meaning Americans ask me what’s an appropriate way to observe Memorial Day. We don’t have a lot of somber holidays on our calendar. In a culturally “Easter and Christmas” … [more]
Homecoming
17-May-2025 by 2 Comments
Have you ever woken up, skin on skin in the afternoon, not from pain or a nightmare but slowly, gently, trusting the moment? The woman next to you is who put you to sleep, and you put her to sleep, and she’s wound around you and into you so ideally that everything is comfort and … [more]
A Eulogy in Doggerel
25-February-2025 by 1 Comment
WP Engine The Ketamine Kowboy KorpsIs cutting and slashing some moreThey’re ready to treatYour job as a cheatIf they don’t understand your chores You must send them a small, earnest missiveAn excuse for your being employedThese kids can’t understandUnless YOU lend a handNo accountants among these smart boys! They’re just hackers and rocketry internsKids who … [more]
Firestarter
14-September-2024 by 2 Comments
This day, when the milk carton rips a little onopening, that hernia, not quite repaired, bites whenyou stand, the coffee, “Fogcutter” it says on the baglies or anyway overestimates and dogsgrayly humbled by sudden damp, grumblemelancholalia stops their frantic shrieks to murmursunworth a dart to the glass-fronted door, eventhe mail carrier FedEx UPS slinks boneless … [more]
Place of Refuge
3-September-2024 by 4 Comments
“Spread out, ya knuckleheads!” Our drill sergeant barked at us in his normally cheerful tone. “One grenade’d get all y’all!” Murmuring alarm at the inevitable bloody future awaiting us, we shut up and spread out, thus facilitating getting dropped to the red, South Carolina dirt for a smoke session. The lesson held: crowding together equals … [more]
"Jack Lewis takes the overall literary crown with his new book...there’s a lot more to Lewis’s work than what it feels like to ride motorcycles.” — Ultimate Motorcycling
"Insightful and from the heart ... a driven and much recommended look into the mind and conflict of the next generation of war veterans. " — Midwest Book Review (Reviewer's Choice)