America on the Brink
The Frantic Invisible Night
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...
Latest
Certitude
Forgetting
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!”
poetry
Insanity: A Sonnet
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
America on the Brink
A More Perfect Union
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.
poetry
The Bottom Line
“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.”
poetry
Self-Immolation: Fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame
“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.
America on the Brink
In Whose Custody the Flags?
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—
Business
Why Is It So Easy To Harm People and the Planet?
Never has it been easier to anonymously do harm to people and the planet: environmentally or socially-damaging products can be purchased with the clic
America on the Brink
What One Gives Up
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
Politics
The President Is Not A CEO, and the Nation Not A Business
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
America on the Brink
In Polite Society
In polite society we hold doors open, Say thanks and please, wear crisp Suits when we drop bombs.
poetry
The Letter
One day she arrived like a scab dragged across a ballad of iodine, a sequin of stars stitched to a dormant volcano’s lapel