About the author
Born in St. Louis (1949) and raised in Chicago’s far South Side, Don was educated early on by the Sisters of Nazareth and instilled with Catholic mysticism, nurturing an empathetic sense of the wondrous. His high school freshman oil canvass Death was displayed by the Augustinians.
At 19, explored the Eternal City, left trace fingerprints on a Sistine Chapel fresco, stood face-to-faces with the damned in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, beheld the Pieta's profound sorrow, deciphered Cupid notes carved in wood atop St Peter's Basilica dome and descended underground, ankle-brushed past subterranean Papal sarcophagi, hunched over through labyrinthine catacomb tunnels illuminated by cloistered clusters of candle-carrying little nuns, heads heavy bowed in prayer like January snow-laden black dahlias.
City of Light fire-swallowed Cognac after midnight, last call heart-burned spilled out from dance club Tabac, stumbling scarlet-face flushed beneath an impending dawn's cerulean sky feral- atmospheric reeking of Pigalle fleurs du mal scented lairs, sniffing open-air market soil smeared carrots, dew-rouged strawberries, arm-pit pungent garlic, onions, sweaty cabbages, radishes and fresh fish brine aromatic-urea rising up from nicotine stained streets, and maddened, crossed the Seine.
Kaleidoscopic vision-quest swam through late 60's London Piccadilly Circus psychedelic-kinetic pigment splattered discotheque convulsive dance-scapes to the tune of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and vertiginous body washed up onto a Whisky à Go-Go maelstrom-swirling foreign shore. Barnaby-Street clothed sat in quiet contemplation in a Westminster Abbey pew, personal-space elbow jostled by swarms of ninja-tourist shutterbugs armed with Nikons.
Florence slow-danced on an Arno River barge at sunset basking in glow-worm lemon lime luciferin and dragon-plasma magenta Chinese lantern auras, eating watermelon beneath a late summer full butter moon. Stubbed a toe at the foot of David. Temporarily blinded by Chartres supernova stained-glass light shards, goose-bumped by Notre Dame de Paris shadows and dizzied by Cologne cathedral spires. Shared Champagne androgynous charades in Brussels, Belgium cabarets, clanked cold steins in German beer gardens and tête-à-tête titillated at Munich’s One-One-Deuce.
Pre-med with a B.A. in English Literature from UIC, Don attended The Program for Writers (poetry) before earning a Doctor of Medicine degree from Northwestern University, and specializing in General and trauma surgery.
He can be seen along the shores of Lake Michigan, writing poems and throwing them to the wind.