GREGORY ORMSON

Tag: #gregoryormson

  • Pressed Shirt, Polished Steel: The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride

    Pressed Shirt, Polished Steel: The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride

    I learned how to dress-up when I was sixteen while working after school at a men’s clothing store in my hometown. The sales staff included four men and one woman. I was there through a highschool distributive education program that paid the state hourly wage ($1.10 at that time) while teaching sales skills. The owner…

  • A Northwoods Practice of Stillness, Light, and Listening: When Small is Beautiful

    A Northwoods Practice of Stillness, Light, and Listening: When Small is Beautiful

    Stories Emerge Like Bears is a forthcoming lyric memoir by Gregory Ormson, set in a Northwoods cabin where attention, labor, and place shape a life lived at human speed. Snowmelt drips from the roof. I watch long enough to feel the pace of winter loosening its grip, giving itself to spring. The water drips without…

  • Stories Emerge Like Bears A Book Announcement

    Stories Emerge Like Bears A Book Announcement

    I’ve signed with Cornerstone Press to publish my lyric memoir Stories Emerge Like Bears Begins at a cabin without running water. You take hold of the red handle and work the pump. At first, there’s only sound, then rhythm takes hold and the water rises. I learned this by doing it at a place where…

  • Untitled post 9704

    Thanks to Brief Wilderness. Growing up, everything was noise and splinters; and while I didn’t think I was fat or stupid, my mother said I was. She didn’t say it all the time, but enough that it registered. I never felt the full weight of this ridicule until I wrote a poem when I was…

  • Ghosts Are Full Here as the Hungry Half Moon Rises 

    Ghosts Are Full Here as the Hungry Half Moon Rises 

    Thank you to PORTLAND REVIEW. Publishing Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956 And so am I, full with the imprints of time and memory. I am rich in soul, yet I’m hungry for more. It’s not a feast I want: I want what singer Sam Garrett wants, “More life, more blessings; more peace, more unity.”…

  • The Black Box of America, a poem by Gregory Ormson

    The Black Box of America, a poem by Gregory Ormson

    This poem and image was originally published November 20, 2024 by Oddball Magazine. Editors calling it “a monster piece.” The Black Box of America, a poem Few people called a spade a spadebefore the country went up in flames.-Anon No one missed that countryMen were soft, angry, and violentLife was brutal and unforgivingPretentious and vacuous…

  • Desert Blooming Flower in the Sun

    Gregory Ormson lyrics, vocal, and a Taylor  414 ce tuned in DADGAD. Guitar and vocal recorded on iPhone, mixed on audacity with strings by Randy Anagnostis playing a PB125 Yamaha Keyboard & Focus Scarlet Gen 3 Audio Interface. This is one of several Anagnostis/Ormson “Desert Inspirations” collaborative pieces. Desert blooming flower in the sun and…

  • Yoga and Play: a new way of being

    this essay explores how yoga and play meet in lived experience In the book, Work, Play, and Worship in a Leisure-Oriented Society, Author Gordon Dahl issued a stern critique of American culture when he wrote, “We work at our play, worship our work, and play at our worship.” Dahl maintained that we miss the point of all…

  • Rocky Point Rally – Motorcycling in Mexico as reported in American Rider Magazine January, 2022

    It’s almost as if reality stalls and the motorcycle dances in time with the dazzling sun of Mexico. With eyes to see, anyone looking around would swear Salvador Dali painted the street where bar balconies, groaning under the weight of heavy bikers, hang low like winter branches and the thump-thump of Big Twins announce ‘schedules…

  • Nick on banjo, G on guitar for Soldiers Joy

    Of all the fun things this last month, this was one of the best. Meeting Nick, Briana’s friend, and playing a few tunes.