Tag Archives: coming of age

Night Signals

Night Signals captures the fragile boundary between childhood imagination and primal fear, where the familiar refuge of a basement becomes something far less certain. Set against the flickering afterglow of late-night television, this piece follows a young boy’s urgent ascent from darkness, chased not by something seen, but something deeply felt. The cellar transforms into a liminal space where time stalls, breath tightens, and fear presses close enough to feel on the back of the neck. In this suspended moment between sleep and waking, escape is not just physical, but psychological. A meditation on memory, fear, and the dreamlike loops that shape our earliest encounters with the unknown.

Depth of Field

In the quiet glow of a basement in March 1982, the waiting finally pays off. The signal has been tuned, the record has been chosen, and now the image returns, developed and real. This piece closes the analog loop, where patience is not just endured but understood. In a world that moved at the speed of process, meaning had time to form, settle, and reveal itself.

33 and a Third

A snow day, a basement, and a turntable spinning time itself. Before everything was instant, there was a rhythm to waiting. Records played start to finish, stories unfolded one track at a time, and imagination filled the space in between. This piece explores the quiet ritual of vinyl, where a boy begins to choose his own signal, shaping not just what he hears, but who he becomes.

Calling All Stations

A boy in a cellar, a man at the dial, and a signal that never quite resolves. This poem explores radio as a bridge across distance and time, shrinking the world while chasing away the loneliness of childhood and the deeper isolation of adulthood.

The Lords of Stanford Drive

In a quiet valley upstate, three boys ruled a kingdom no one else could see. Big Wheels and vacant lots. Crayfish and cardboard swords. Drive-ins and rotary phones. The Lords of Stanford Drive is a suburban epic about friendship, freedom, and the strange elasticity of childhood time — how it once stood still, then slowly crept, then suddenly caught up. A myth of a street. A memory of an era. A crown worn lightly, and laid down without ceremony.