I am tired,
And tired of being
So tired
Constantly.
I’m tired
Of the voices
Constant
Critiques;
the constant
Mirrored
Dialog
Between
the dark
And the dark.
(November 10, 2026)
Category: broken
-
Cynic
by
Hope is a thing
With feathers.
If we come too near.
It quickly flies away.
Leaving It’s empty nest
A tomb for broken shells.
Hope always remains
Out of our paltry reach.
Hidden in the leaves,
It flits from branch
To branch singing
A mocking song.
(November 2, 2026)
-
The morning is humid and thick with heat.
Yesterday cloaked its version of today
in brighter shades than those of nostalgia:
the past’s certainty belies its troubles.
I live along an edge of some other,Uncomfortable in the skins given
to me for the roles I need to play now.
Like hope, regret is best left to itself.
It is as if I’m stuck in a crevice,the walls widening above and below
where the frenzied wind leaps from edge to edge
until vanishing to violent air.
No opportunities rise with the sun;I feel old, and know the end has begun.
(July 2, 2026)
-
This evening the old ghosts have returned.
They inhabit the edges of my vision
whispering their tired secrets to the past.
Like scions of privilege hang in cafes
deconstructing last night’s party gossip,
The ghosts wail their sad regrets-she never said,
nor he listened- Even in death they cling
to their moral shortfalls like life jackets.
If there’s a hell, here is where it festers:the exhumation, through exegesis,
of dead variations left to decay
like tattered banners along the ramparts
pretend the siege was easily broken
and the dull ashen smoke never smoldered.
(May 25, 2026)
-
1.
i cannot move
too much is broken
2.
demons live in mirrors
and are trying to escape
3.
it’s almost tuesday
yet there are no doors
4.
there is a dream
i cannot see
(May 19, 2026)
-
a scream like lightning
rough ragged quick
followed by male laughter
then more garbled screams
like dogs growling
lights go off and on
upstairs then downstairs
the front door opens
light stabs across the yard
then the door slams shut
a bedroom light remains on
a car guns out of the driveway
then shoots off into the dark
then silence
(February 28, 2026)
-
he shifted to the third person
someone outside his skin
someone easier to understand
someone easier to forgive
somewhere easier to hide
he felt under interrogationfor years answers formed easily
short sentences small words
now the simple questionswere grey nuanced and difficult
set with slow traps and baited
with articulate parenthesis
now he was no longer firstnow he had someone to blame
(February 5, 2026)
-
“the world is too much with us”
-W. Wordsworth
no longer the getting and blind spending
though that is still here teeming at our feet
like low-level radiation leaking
into the spongey ground we walk upon
but the powerful’s thick drooling anger
flailing curses wildly on everyone
that does not resemble their idea
of a pastoral past they never knew
this is the time I have come to live ina time where the soft smell of hope lingers
like a dusty corpse left alone at home
when to be cloaked in ironic disdain
is to disguise an intellectual
self-revulsion that equivocates death
(January 10, 2026)
-
It happens right here
in front of us:
close enough to feel
the blood splatter;
close enough to hear
her lungs wheeze;
close enough to smell
the rusty wet iron.
We shrug and move on.What’s there to do?
But scream,
and point fingers;
then wake up to start
another day in America.
(December 25, 2025)
-
storms rage without rain
like shrouds across the dry earth
trees drop their dead leaves
each night grows longer
one more minute of light less—
incremental death
i’m tired of trying—
too cynical to pretend
darkness has not come
it is ironic
with the weight of centuries
nothing can be done
the sycamore’s branches fallI fear spring will not return
(October 21, 2025)
-
I had a dream/nightmare this morning. I was returning to a teaching job at a high school where I taught English Literature and Composition 14 years ago. The dream began at an English Department meeting where we were being introduced to a newly purchased curriculum that emphasized teaching the students how to spell. The curriculum came with “can’t fail lessons” and lots of pre-made, easy to grade, worksheets. I was arguing against the program, of course. I tried to explain the benefits of teaching reading and writing through a workshop system, of course. No one was listening to me, or the presentation from the district, of course. Instead, the other teachers spent the time complaining about their students and the administration, of course. Richard, my friend, tried to calm me down, but I took it as he was just patronizing me to get me to shut up. The meeting broke up. I wandered the halls looking for my classroom. I realized that no one had shown me where I was supposed to teach. The halls were crowded. It seemed to be lunch, since no one was in any of the classrooms, instead they were milling about in the common areas. Teachers rushed about, overwhelmed. Students gossiped, politely ignoring me as I walked around the building, lost. I never should have come back to teaching, I thought. I should quit now, I thought. But I can’t quit. I need the money: If I quit, I won’t have any income, I thought. I kept walking around the building in a growing panic. I didn’t know where to go. I woke up, as I remembered that I was retired, that I had a pension, that I wasn’t teaching anymore. That I did not have to teach anymore. It was over. It was over.
(September 10, 2025)
-
Just another day:
the children go off to school;
students are gunned down.
-
The adage goes
To save for a rainy day,
But the rain doesn’t rain much
Anymore. When it does
I watch the grass, trees,
And flowers left dance,
A hollow ghostly dance.
I look around the circle;
To see ritual filled eyes
momentarily hope. We are
Lost. The moment’s all
That is left. Tomorrow’s
Too late. It rains
For hours. the air cools,
At least ‘til morning.
Nothing’s changed;
All is as it has been. Yet,
The streets dry quickly,
And the earth cracks
Open like an empty kiss
Bestowed upon a corpse
As a last blessing.
(August 22, 2025)
