They’ve separated 5,500 children.
No, they’ve discarded them
like cans of Coca-Cola,
5,500 children who reached our shore
like sea foam, salty, crying salt…
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Forgetting
February 10, 2018
Why can I not forget when forgetting is the cure?
The warm, wet beach hisses and coos, but her allure
Belongs to those who want to rest. I do not want to rest.
“Listen to your doctor,” they say.
“You are but human! You can’t go on like this!”
Insanity: A Sonnet
September 12, 2017
I’m insane, or at least not well, my brain
A flooded grave, the coffin cracked by roots
From a forest overgrown…she has slain
The dead once again, and from me no fruits
A More Perfect Union
August 18, 2017
When children by gunfire die,
when the dreamer and the warden clash,
when statues betray the sculptor, we proclaim
This is not who we are.
The Bottom Line
July 30, 2017
“Would you break the law then pay a fine
If it helped the bottom line?”
“Yes,” says the CEO, “this job is mine
So long as I grow the bottom line.”
“The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack.” – Shakespeare
The power of fire is not that it burns
but that it distracts:
We save what burns because it burns.
In Whose Custody the Flags?
January 10, 2017
The flags are at full-staff
Though Jackeline is dead
Of dehydration
And the Guatemalan boy whose name
Has not been released
Is dead
Of the flu—
Why Is It So Easy To Harm People and the Planet?
October 1, 2016
Never has it been easier to anonymously do harm to people and the planet: environmentally or socially-damaging products can be purchased with the click of a button or tap of a screen from the comfort of our home, car, or […]
What One Gives Up
August 16, 2016
My heart has grown docile, less inclined
to thrash about, to strain at the leash.
Maybe that’s the way it goes: We come
into the world like lava, we burn and blaze
and flow, and then cool into something solid
One of the most pernicious attitudes about the nature of political leadership is that running a city, state, or even the whole nation is akin to being the CEO of a company, an attitude shared not only by free market-obsessed […]