it may just be
a timely coincidence
but have you noticed
the last circle of hell
in dante’s inferno
ends in the cold
betrayal of ice
(February 17, 2026)
Category: politics
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“the war never ended somehow begins again”
—-Natalie Diaz
they no longer confine their hatred
to the darker shadows of night
but walk about mid-morning
unconcerned when recognized
thick blood drips from their teeth
while they stand in line at the bank
or watch the game at the bar
casually drinking a craft beer
we all know them for what they areyet say little above a whisper
we tell ourselves they won’t stay long
yet they do linger like smoke
long after the fire has burned
our lives into softest ash
(February 16, 2026)
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I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, the RFB book for February, just now. By the end I liked it better than I did while I was reading it. In other words, Diaz brought it to a close masterfully. It is a sweeping family drama story on a simple level. But more so how history-in-person, history-in-place, and how the stories you hear from your family’s history form a large part of your destiny, identity and “fuku” (curse, I believe). Ultimately it is a story of love, albeit a tragic story of love. A line from near the end of the book: “ She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you’ll know loss the rest of your life.” A line from the narrator, which I believe is the opposite of what was given to Oscar, which was more the kind of girl God gives you so that you will know the power of love to bring you happiness. Even if only for a brief wondrous moment of your life.
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Our two dogs don’t like the cold rain today;
they huddle deeper into the blankets’
warmth still tangled across the bed upstairs.
I watch the neighbor’s small duck flock parade
behind his fence squawking their displeasure
with the world’s cold misappropriations.
Much farther north of here an ice hardens
quickly into a fiery discontent.
The TV weathermen predict winter storms
will settle darkly across the country
with dire warnings of icy roads to come.
We live out our lives in dangerous times:
where we must brave the cold outside to live,
but any warmth, like love, is hard to find.
(January 24, 2026)
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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)
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“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)
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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)
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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)
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to fill the soft holes
the auspices
have left behind
for our memory
like tattered tarot cards
to make sense of
for our past to exist
in this present
dénouement
which of course
our future will
ignore as blasé
as conventional wisdom
bangs out a beat
on a tattered drum
we must insist
like the birds
how this story goes
(October 16, 2025)
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even memory becomes a lie—
that was a truth, and so goes
the old paradox— out of truth
a lie to beget yet another.
The hollowness must be filled.So, the words fall into the holes
like wet sand, thick and dark
until the voices have stopped;
until the voice becomes itself:pervasive like white static
smoothing all to a null point
where what we know is allowed.
I know my truth for now:one thing leads to another
(October 6, 2025)
subtext 