About Rocky Road Cafe

The name Rocky Road Café came to me unbidden many years ago. Decades ago, in fact.

It arrived much the way certain things arrive in stories — from that somewhere where language has no words, carrying the feeling of a place that already existed before I understood what belonged inside it.

Scott outside in a blue shirt and jacket

Chapter I

The First Doorway

At first, I did not know what Rocky Road Café was supposed to be. I only knew the name had the feeling of a small corner of the internet where stories, poems, fragments, quiet jokes, and lightly impossible things might one day sit together.

Much to my surprise, no one had taken the domain.

So I did.

Chapter II

The Name Waited

The years of waiting

For years, I renewed it without building anything. I would look at the name, wonder what it wanted to become, and keep it alive for another year.

Eventually, I did let it go.

It seemed foolish to keep holding a door open for a project that still had no room behind it.

Years passed.

The return

One day, my thoughts returned to Rocky Road Café . I dismissed them at first, but the Café kept returning.

I wondered what it might have been. What it still could be. Out of curiosity, I checked the domain again, fully expecting it to be gone. Surely such a good name would have been discovered. Surely someone else had found it. Surely the domain had been registered.

It was not.

So I became the keeper of the name again.

And once again, for years, I did almost nothing with it except renew my small claim on the doorway. Some part of me kept saying: not yet, but maybe someday.

Now someday has arrived.

CHAPTER III

A Small Place for Lightly Impossible Things

Rocky Road Café is a small place for stories, poems, fragments, and lightly impossible things.

Some pieces here are meant to be read slowly.

Some are meant to be written on a chalkboard.

Some, even, will fit on a napkin.

Still others may follow an alpaca traveling a road that seems to have its own ideas.

CHAPTER IV

It Asks Nothing Back

It is not here to correct you, optimize your mornings, explain the age, or sell you a philosophy. It is here to give you a corner of the internet where a little wonder can sit down without being asked for more.

What You’ll Find Here

Poems — freely given
Arrivals — as found
Whimsy — in season

Seriousness — when it knocks
Nostalgia — served warm
Lightly impossible things — house specialty

CHAPTER V

A Little Room to Breathe

Rocky Road Café is built for ordinary moments that have gone slightly luminous, for jokes that arrive without announcing themselves, for small recognitions, quiet absurdities, and the pleasure of reading something that does not demand anything back.

It is here to offer a little refuge, a little amusement, a little feeling, and a little room to breathe.

CHAPTER VI

Will it be perfect?

Probably not.

I hope it becomes something special. I hope people wander in from time to time, read a little, smile, chuckle, feel something they were not expecting, and leave with the sense that they found a small place that was glad to have them.

The name waited a long time.

I hope I live up to it.

CHAPTER VII

Come in. Anywhere.

The road won’t mind.

Read a little.
Pour yourself tea, or coffee,
or whatever suits the hour.

Stay as long as you like.
Leave when you are ready.

The road will be here.

READ A POEM

THE ROCKY ROAD CAFE

POEMS & PROVISIONS

Open most mornings.
Close when the light gets good.

Thank you for stopping by.
Come back anytime.
The Café will be here.

SEND A NOTE →

HOME POEMS ABOUT SEND A NOTE PRIVACY COLOPHON