Welcome
Come in and sit a spell! Your hair looks good today.

Hello, friends!

I hope your holidays were jolly and the new year has thus far been kind. For my family, January roared down upon us like a grizzly bear awoken too early from hibernation. We’ve had Covid, violent food poisoning, off-and-on public schooling, and in the midst of all of it, my mother decided to hurl herself violently to the ground and break her hip. This is the second hip she’s broken, actually. She’s out of hips at this point.

Up to this point I have been forging ahead, eyes forward, shoulders squared, jaw set, as I have dealt with each crisis, but this morning I woke up and wanted very badly to hide beneath the covers and disappear. Evaporate. Dissolve. Is it wrong to want to slip into a coma, just for a month or two? Just to sleep the sleep of the unburdened?

That’s where I’m at, folks.

Yet duty calls, and damn if it isn’t a persistent sonofabitch. I utilized a metaphorical crowbar and pried myself out from bed and here I am, ready (HAHAHAHAHAHA) for another day.

Ready or not, I’m here. And sometimes that’s the best we can do, and that’s okay. Just keep showing up and hoping for the best. One foot in front of the other, one breath at a time. Whatever you’re facing, be not afraid. Every tide turns, and this too shall pass. Take time to pray, if you are wont to do so, and don’t be ashamed when the tears fall and the emotions overwhelm. When the gales shriek around your windows, be a safe space for yourself.

That said, I wanted to offer up this bit of sentiment about new years and new days and new challenges and opportunities. I wrote this last year, and I still feel it with all my heart. I hope you enjoy it as well, even if you’re reading it whilst buried beneath several comforters.

**passes you the crowbar**

J.W. Rose

January second is a curious day
as the new year awakens and rubs its bright eyes
and the old year,
shedding tinsel and confetti
with its shirt on backwards, shoes in hand
makes the walk of shame
into oblivion
as we sneer
and throw stones

There are no bad years;
they cannot help what happens, after all
They begin, as we all do,
with innocence and curiosity
ready to do their best
and hoping for second chances

So let us bid adieu to 2020
without malice
without bitterness
without the malignancy that will eat us away
but with mercy, and a tender forgiveness
as we would have
for the penitent man being led away
weeping
to the guillotine And let us take the hand of this new year
let us refrain from seeking to force it
into our idea of “prosperous” and “happy”
but watch it grow
watch it wander and lead
listen to it speak, however haltingly
without our correction
let it lead us through every dark and light place
until we open our hearts
and discover peace.

Read More

True confessions: I have always been a summer-lover, especially as a child. Summer: that glorious season in which time slows, dilates, and extends. The days are longer, filled with opportunities for all sorts of indolence and mild malfeasance (let’s face it, you can get away with a lot more when your parents are drained and limp with humidity).

Summer was jumping off the high dive at the local pool with my heart in my throat, it was exploring the woodsy hill behind my house (certain that Bigfoot lived there), it was riding bikes, it was sleeping over with friends who had HBO (gasp!), it was parties at the lake, it was “dragging Grand”. It was the music of cicadas, and it was vacations with my mother’s family in Texarkana, my favorite place in the whole world as a kid (it has dropped to second place, after the beach, just about any beach).

But that was then, and this is now. Now, I have become one of those adults drained by humidity and longing for the crisp snap of an Autumn morning. And then it comes, overnight, stealing over the trees and settling down. I awaken to the sound of a marching band and am filled with melancholy.

Why does fall make us melancholy?

I think it is the suddenness of it. The other three seasons emerge slowly, stretching and yawning and rubbing their eyes. They take a while to get going. Their conversations might go like:

Spring: “Oh, hey Winter. Mind if I sit for a while. No, no, you continue with your business. Maybe I can just…butt in every once in a while. Is that cool? Sweet.”

But fall just bursts upon summer, chasing it away like a flea-bitten cat on his doorstep. I drink my coffee and stare out the screen door as the rain falls, the cool, moist air like a welcome friend who tells you he’ll take the kids for a while, you just relax.

Fall is a reminder that time passes, that nothing is forever, and that we shouldn’t get too comfortable with the way things are. It urges us to cuddle with those we love and tell them how we feel before it’s too late. It makes us look around and think “where the heck did this year go?” and we resign ourselves to the fact that we are, indeed, growing older.

But it also says “It’s okay, don’t panic. I brought pumpkins and firelight and crickets and corn mazes and Halloween and Thanksgiving with me. Let’s have some fun.”

I wrote a poem in honor of fall last year, when I first realized my opinion of it had changed. I hope you enjoy it.

Equinox

I swing the back door wide
pull the screen closed
turn back to coffee
and quiet reflection

Fall tiptoes in
damp earth clinging to his galoshes
he creeps behind me
and puts his hands, cool and smooth,
over my eyes

Guess who? he says
and I hear the scurry of squirrels robbing my feeder
filling up for winter’s long night

While the geese wing their way overhead
as the smell of woodsmoke drifts from a neighbor’s house

Fall
I say
you scoundrel
here you are again
bringing sweaters out of closets
and woolen socks from drawers

come sit a spell

He winks and bows in his red and orange coat
ruddy cheeks round and smiling as he takes a chair beside me

I ask him about the laden apple orchard
the glowing pumpkin patches
and how the harvest is coming along Outside
the blushing trees silently disrobe
the rabbit’s coat grows thick
wild larders fill with acorns and I
link arms with autumn
as we skip down the leaf-littered lane.

Read More

Have you ever had a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?

No?

Me neither, but it’s one of my favorite quotes from the riotously funny 1985 movie “Real Genius”. If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching it, I highly recommend that you do. You’re welcome.

Speaking of dreams, I have one. Maybe two. Okay, three. But that’s it. The point is, one of them involves a little person called you, and another little person called me.

A writer’s life can be a lonely one. We live a lot in our own heads, where plots and settings and, most of all, characters, swirl and dance and beckon. Characters, especially, are meddlesome things, as they rarely do as they are told and have a tendency to talk back. They can change the entire narrative of our stories willy-nilly, with no regard for the hard work we have already done. Sure, we can keep company with them, but they are willful and temperamental. Sometimes we don’t even like them, and we gave them life!

In an effort to counteract the loneliness, most writers join writing groups and create blogs and websites, hoping for feedback and encouragement and, even, constructive criticism (emphasis on constructive). Anything to stay engaged with the wider world beyond the one inside our fevered brains.

My dream is simple: to create a website that people like to visit; a place that promotes contemplation and engagement and, hopefully, giggling. A place where my ideas and poetry and short stories can get out of my basement and take on a life of their own. They don’t even pay rent, for heck’s sake!

That’s where you come in. If you are a reader, then please peruse my poignant poetry, shuffle through my shipshape short stories, and maybe even buy my beguiling books. And (this is part two of my dream) let me know what you think! If you like it, tell your friends and family and acquaintances and strangers on the street and dogs and cats and goldfish (they won’t care but it will give you practice). Point them to this website. Tell them to subscribe. And thus my dream may flourish and grow into a fully functional and productive reality.

And maybe it will even pay the rent.

Read More

Let’s just go ahead and forget about the last few months and pretend that you are stopping by for the VERY first time right now, in June of 2021, shall we? Needless to say, there were many, yea verily, so many multitudes of things to bend to my will before this website was even near doing what I was demanding of it. But hark! The dawn breaks! And sends its golden beams down upon our heads, as I welcome you with the opennest of open arms to this, my author blog, and its mothership, jwrose.com

So take a look around, wouldja? Let me know what you think. There’s a 100% fat-free, calorie-free, commitment-free and free-free short story called Lycanthropy up on my brand new Short Stories page. It’s super-cool. The remaining ten stories will, gradually, be added, so don’t despair. More soon!

Your humble servant,

J.W. Rose

Read More

Hello, good people of the internet! Here you will find author news, book release information, and intel regarding my continuing quest to be the greatest writer the world has ever known *insert maniacal cackle*. Please consider subscribing so that you don’t miss out on a single moment. I appreciate you more than you know.

Read More