Daydreaming About the Design for my Chapbook Cover

This poem is an exercise inspired by the 'First Thought, Best Thought' writing theory of the Beats. I basically just recorded a shift at work as it happened with some personal observations and memories folded in for good measure. It's a stream of consciousness thing to be honest, and not meant to be anything more than that. This poem will not be included in the chapbook, Wild Taste, as far as that goes. Fair warning: there is a bit of dirty language in one section of this poem. It's over fast but it even surprised me a little bit when I re-read the poem.

According to Folklore, a Long-Missed Friend Will Return

Notes from November 7, 2017.
A yellow jacket flying around the hood of my car and a bird singing I can't identify, but it's familiar, I haven't heard it since my childhood. I can smell wet gravel on the driveway and hear it crunching underfoot as I walk to end of it where I'll wait for the bus. I hear that bird song from somewhere in the oak scrub across the street. This morning that sound is visceral, it literally throws me back in time. A lump in my throat forms for a childhood a long ways behind me and my long gone mother who I miss so much.

April, 2019. The bird singing in 2017 was a chickadee.

Adventure Diary: August 9, 2018

In August of 2018 I was between jobs, so my wife was working extra shifts and I spent a lot of time with our children. I have, in fact, always spent a lot of time with our children because I am a modern dad--I love my kids, I love my wife, and I believe if both parents are working out of the house then both parents should be parenting. I think it should have always been like this, but just because it wasn't doesn't' mean it can't be now. During this time between jobs I tried to write a daily journal entry. I took the kids to places in Wintson-Salem, where we'd recently moved, so we could learn about the city and find things we'd like to into the future.