Smoke

My other self cries out in her crow voice, more wind in it than snarl...from somewhere, there, off to my left...he sits there in the clearing, in a grassy bowl at the bottom of the hill...he's smoking, watching me...a tall hat of smoke rises around his head...where's your brother, he asks me...he gets up from his rock chair... where's your shining stone house I say...maybe my brother is there I say...maybe your brother is there he laughs...

Thomas Timmins was born in rural Iowa. He somehow won the genes-and-family lottery when he inherited natural happiness coupled with a skeptical eye. Despite the gifts of love and empathic values he received, he's had his magic carpet pulled out from under him many times. He stays aloft because of his four magnificent children and their miraculous lives and children. Thomas has published and performed his poetry and short fiction in person and in print across the U.S. and on the internet. With poet friends, he founded Fractals, a literary tabloid and ran Poets and Players, a community performance series. Having had more jobs than most itinerant workers, he turned the experiences into fodder for his literary work and confidence to found, create and manage his own projects for a living and for community service. Thomas developed and taught writing and coaching programs for inmates, published commercial writing, founded, managed, and advised several small businesses ranging from soyfoods to ice cream to telephone fundraising to biological pest control to a video game start-up to energy efficiency retrofits and a media company. (Some might think all of these projects reveal an innate instability, though Thomas believes it's more about the Crooked Path he and everyone meander.) Zoëtown Media is making available several other of his compositions ranging from a graphic novel, a novella and short stories, poetry, and 5 Gifts of Bright Presence©, true accounts of encounters with an acausal positive force in the natural world.

CONTENTS: Rain Path Shadows Frogs Ridge Fog Smoke Rumble Dew Hill Bridge Clouds Slice Father Whip Children Legs Ships Hawk Slide Ragdoll Fish Girl Seagulls Osprey White light Soaked Gale Ice Bears Deer Bull Blue legs Giggling Dog food Laughing Whips Osprey Body Purple bruise Face Sobbing In your cave Necklace Night's end Knocking from underground Irrigation Standing at the mouth Secret home Across the lake Spying Emergence New leaves Fog Green flowers Naked children Blood Meat Afraid Inside my chest Road building Inside Digging Notes Leap Silent language Near hill Listening Shortcut Heart"