poetry
Worries
Like the pile of books on my nightstand, like the ever-falling leaves in the yard, my worries accumulate.
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Be The Change
Meditations on the Moon
The moon, cold and pockmarked and hard, is not dainty. The moon belches starlight, has no gender.
Be The Change
Ode to the Last Dollop
You may think it inconsequential that an empty tube of toothpaste is not, if pressed, empty, but has more to give of itself. You may prefer odes to lofty ideas, or nature, or love...
poetry
To the High School Student Who Thinks Math & Poetry Don’t Matter
In my pocket I have access to all the world’s knowledge: calculators, AI, essays, videos to solve any equation. Still, when the vet says 50% chance of permanent paralysis and, though the literature is sparse, a high probability of Myelomalacia—fatal, painful—I am as the hiker who...
America on the Brink
Don’t Watch the News
You don’t need to watch the news. Walk the dog. Lay in the grass. Watch a cloud settle into evening’s funereal pews. That terror which lies in wait will be there when you return...
poetry
Paradise
I’m in a cabana on a beach in Cancún looking Upon light-blue water so warm you can walk Right in, no need to adjust to the temperature.
poetry
The Allure of Cliché: A Sonnet
Neither the moon nor stars alone allure. Celestial lips may good metaphors make, yet we can’t long mere metaphor endure: we seek cliché for companionship's shake.
Be The Change
Meme-based Political Discourse is...Bad
The advent of the Internet in general, and tools like Google search in particular, heralded an age in which instant access to all the world's knowledge would enhance discourse, remove the traditional gatekeepers to information, and lead to greater human flourishing.
poetry
Periphery
Somewhere over Tulsa the pilot warns we’re passing through a storm. Experienced in flight, trusting the engineers who designed and built this plane, we pop headphones back in our ears, turn to our movies and TV...
Be The Change
Keeping Time
The alarm goes off at 4. I will myself to my feet, not for a grand mission, but to catch a flight. In the predawn darkness, driving the 101 to the 405, I recite Clifton, Keats, & Limón
Be The Change
Guangdon
In Guangdon Province a young father rises early for work at Doubleeagle Industry Limited, where he operates the plastic-injection molding machine. It is rote, if loud and dangerous work...
Be The Change
Englightenment
I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself