Carry Me

My son Jude turns 16 this Sunday (November 4).   Here’s a new one I wrote for him, after a stroll at Radnor Lake.  Happy Birthday, Jude – with all my love – always.  Dad. Carry Me Rambling autumn walk, burnt colors turn to sounds woodpecker clouds hammer the trees like claves in an orchestraContinueContinue reading “Carry Me”

Gumshoe Bumble

Happy to have a new flash fiction entitled “Gumshoe Bumble,” published up at 101 Stories, “a comprehensive ecosystem and community that can support writers, editors, and readers.”  Their words. My words are the following, this compressed noir update. https://101words.org/gumshoe-bumble/

Ode to the Blue Room

Happy to report on another new poem of mine published – “Ode to the Blue Room” – featured in the latest One Sentence Poems (Right Hand Pointing poetry journal).  This piece follow a distinct Nashville vibe but riffs off some other things, as well. And, yes it’s one sentence.  Hope you enjoy it, Doug. http://www.onesentencepoems.com/osp/doug-hoekstra-ode-to-the-blue-room/

Star Parties

Dusted off this one from a few years back, for the upcoming essay collection.  Enjoy STAR PARTIES You might find yourself standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, waiting but anxious and bored, having forgotten how to daydream. Your attention might drift to the tabloids lined up strategically in front of you, readingContinueContinue reading “Star Parties”

Nashville Haikus

Recently I was reading some Alan Watts (Zen and the Beat Way), and was struck by his analysis of haiku poetry. He wrote “by the seventeenth century the Japanese Zen Masters had brought ‘wordless’ poetry to perfection in the haiku, the poem of seventeen syllables which drops the subject almost as it takes it up…”ContinueContinue reading “Nashville Haikus”