Meteorolgy and Metaphysics - a poem

meteorology and metaphysics

it was partly cloudy for the crucifixion;

some say it stormed later,

but who would do that to their kid

on a holiday/

The Art of Never Leaving Well Enough Alone

OK, so the book is edited, queries out to agents, web site up, media kit finished, Facebook page filled up with new friends, and Scribd scribed.  Surely, that's enough already!  Nope, not for the terrier Timothy.

Being one who has an exceedingly rich inner life, there is always something unsaid or undone, with a multitude of twists and endings.  I always need a new toy,  something to add to the constant mix.

Memory Accompaniment

"How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ?"
     Like a Rolling Stone
     Bob Dylan

I was on the beach in Santa Monica.  Bikini babes, sun, and surf, were my world.  And then I heard "Like a Rolling Stone" on somebody's transistor radio.  I changed, and the memory of that song embedded itself in my brain.  Every time I heard it repeated, I would always remember exactly where I was and how I felt at that moment.

MENTAL HYGIENE - Excerpt Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

            As with most things, emotional edges fray with wear. Murphy kept his 

personal mending to himself, but epiphanies were coming between his self-

serving nature and his circumstances. The specter of maturity was beginning 

to get in the way of avoidance, and there seemed to be nothing he could do 

to stop it.  He could no longer ignore the person he was becoming, his 

conscious part in the scheme of things, the fact that he was now the very 

pawn he despised.  

            Those thoughts lay in his head as he shared a cheap motel bed with 

a fresh WAC. What was her name?

Another Poem from the European Trip

On My Birthday

on my birthday in 1945

the philadelphia record reported

that a dozen peach growers in new jersey

filed suit; blaming

the atom bomb for ruining

their crops/ that was the big headline;

the nuremberg nazi war criminal trial

began that day with less fanfare/

both events were far away

and not my fault/

The First of the Poems From European Trip

     Venice Vision

i capture a glimpse;
a snapshot of your crossing
the rialto bridge in september/
the shadow of you reversed
on the water;
the whisper of autumn
catching in your hair
like a frieze/

and venice,
the world's last stop
before a poem,
turns down the sheets;
you're gone
with the good light/

MENTAL HYGIENE - a novel by Timothy Dean Martin (Chapter Two)

CHAPTER TWO

"So, I understand that you're from Los Angeles which means that Sergeant
Gonzales won’t like you."

"I'm very likeable, Major Green,” Murphy answered.

Major Bert Green, who arrived back from lunch before Sergeant Gonzalez,
immediately ushered Murphy into
his office and made him feel totally at ease. “Sergeant Gonzales can wait to
chew on you,” Green said as he sat down.

Deja Vu All Over Again - Mental Hygiene Musing

"Are you bitter?" a friend asked me.   I was escorting her and her husband home after a dinner party the other night.

"No, I’m guilty," I answered immediately.  We were discussing the reason for writing my new novel, Mental Hygiene.

Mental Hygiene is a coming of age story of Michael Murphy, a privileged twenty-year old Southern Californian, who has been drafted at the height of the Vietnam War.  His considerable manipulative skills aid him in avoiding the warfront, and land him at Fort Jackson, SC as a Psych Tech in the Mental Hygiene clinic.  Its subject matter is loosely based on my own experiences at the same time and place.