Word by Word, Line by Line Answering Your Questions with More

And Finally defining my “They”

When poetry doesn’t come, I write letters. I think they’d rather have the poetry


Letters imply dissatisfaction, petulance, disappointment. They look over the words trying to find the hole in the logic just as my parents did years ago.


Curious, peering, waiting for the slip that implies no fault of their own. Angry when it isn’t found.

Letters—biting and occasionally brutal with no chance at correction…no desire for it.

Logic—wielded in a pen with no remorse. Unforgiving. Minutely detailed. Flawless.

Letters to my soul as well as to theirs. Reaching into a mind at random and exploding it with thought—the being. Driving through disappointment and regret with no apology, no remorse, no anger.

Stylized to be infuriatingly impeccable, frustratingly insightful, forebodingly precise, inevitably correct.

Letters very nice and very accurate. Letters without the peace of poetry—without the hum of cadence.