i heart garrison

Most mornings on the way to work I listen to Garrison Keelers' "Writers Almanac"
I harbor a fantasy of hearing Mr. Keeler say my name.......

"jack mertz- born april 16th, 1954, first wrote for his elementary school newspaper in 1963. A riveting tale about a talking school building and how the naughty kids wrote on it and the good kids picked up trash. he read to kill a mockingbird in 1967 and decided that harper lee had said enough, gave up writing stories decided to find a wife, have four lovely daughters and live in a small nebraska town and write poetry"

here are three poems by jack mertz:

Today is finished
Tomorrow is an eternity away
Now keeps ending
Yesterday has no gist
And I’m being followed by a moon shadow……………….

There once was a girl name penelope
And her watch was quite free with it’s “times to be”
She’d spend most her days
face down in the hay
‘cause time made her late for her “wants to be”

by the numbers.
nine ninety one locust place
one thousand square feet of home
second bedroom on the left was safe
third bedroom on the right was off limits….
especially when the door was closed
five hundred and twenty four people before me
one hundred thousand people after me
two dogs and one alley to explore
eddie, jimmy, jackie, and debbie
tag along rusty and a starlet named jane
one cherry bomb in the bird bath
one block party in august
two broken hearts in october
nine ninety one locust place

poems by jack mertz, published in his mind and used with permission here on the writers almanac.

be well
do good works
and keep in touch!