Ask:
Who are you
willing to give up?
Then apologize
in advance
for your callowness.
Ask: Who will apologize
to you
when this is over?
(February 12, 2026)
Category: anxiety
-
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)
-
I want to worry
about our dogs
barking randomly
along the back fence
at shadows and leaves
while the occasional squirrel
fusses at them
from the safety of a tree.
Instead wolves roam the streetsfur stiff with dried blood;
and eviscerated prey
muddy the snow,
while neighborhood dogs
howl through the night.
(January 14, 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)
-
What do I dowith the I here,
with the voice here,with an other
who is just me;yet, not as well?
For so long now,I have written
into my lifeout of my life;
I know myselfas different,
something otherthan what I write.
Someone must breathebehind these words,
must speak slowlyto understand.
What is beingsotto voce?
Am I speaking?
Or listening?
What tight constraintsmust be applied
in order to saythat I am here?
(January 7, 2026)
-
No blood splatted rubble
no violent clashes
between blind love’s
engendered hatreds
no screams
nor whimpers
of the dying next door—
only a silent room
is left to clarify
another day’s first light
as it expands
through an open window
(December 1, 2025)
-
Silence is silent.
Except it is not,
just ask John Cage.
He’ll look at you
for four minutes
and 33 seconds.
In VermontI met a man
from Boston.
He could not sleep;
the forest was loud
compared to the city.
In zen, the goalis to still the mind
into silence:
to be aware
to such an extent
to become extant.
In an anechoicchamber, one hears
one’s bones,
and the thrum
of one’s blood
beneath the skin.
(November 14, 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)
-
Night continues to fall, dark upon dark,
unrelenting, cold as eternity.
Yet, tonight a half-moon hangs in the stars.
I try to ignore the fear on the wind,
but it eats its way in, splintering bone.
Ice, like a steel knife rusting at our throat,
parses words to an elemental degree.
What can be said contains but small nuance.
So I write pinching syllables like rice
to keep starvation one more day away,
hoping without hope that what I can say
is enough to carry hope through this dark,
that whatever bit of love which remains
is enough to hold our world together.
(October 3, 2025)
-
earth turns towards the sun
trees abandon their crisp leaves
the kidney wood blooms
the heat in texashangs heavily in the air
summer will not leave
lizards sprint sprightlyacross the back patio
no rain for weeks now
they warn it will endeven now summer lingers
like a slow sickness
everything unfolds slowlywe are here then we are not
(September 22, 2025)
-
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)
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