America on the Brink
In Times Like These
In times like these I clean the gutters monthly and the lint trap every day;
America on the Brink
29 posts
America on the Brink
Bravery
This is a time for bravery. Not the human-cannonball kind. Not the free-diver nor the free-soloist.
America on the Brink
Pre-Flight Checklist
Keys, wallet, phone. The Collected Works of Federico García Lorca. Moleskin journal and ballpoint pen. Mahogany chess board, Rubik's Cub,...
America on the Brink
October 1, 2025
I am awakened too early. I cannot be awake. The growl of my neighbor’s leaf-blower is what prehistoric man, cowering in his cave, cowered from. How do you forgive your neighbor?
America on the Brink
Nostalgia
Remember when bumper stickers read Free Tibet or End Apartheid, and we agreed? Remember when there was just one war on TV, like a movie whose plot you knew by heart?
America on the Brink
Lottery
For once, I throw my lot in with the rest. At the bleak store that sells tobacco and liquor, two bucks buys me this slip that feels sinful and foolish in my hands...
America on the Brink
Leaves of Grass
I abhor the grass, the leaves that turn to blades under the whetstone of heat, the worms, blind and desperate and slippery, that wriggle forth in the wet, the sucking of mud on bare feet...
America on the Brink
Undecided
I’ve been staring at the wall for hours, wondering why the paint won’t peel off, what’s holding the plaster together.
America on the Brink
America
My son and I spent weeks assembling a Lego car, 3,000 bricks of hard plastic intricately connected to form a whole.
America on the Brink
Signs of Life
When you have run out of courage; when every day is a loaded gun and your hand is not on the trigger; when you have given all you have to give and still disaster looms;
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...
America on the Brink
Mourners
We are all mourners now, our clothes funeral shrouds we tear off our backs when the time comes (and it will come); in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying the graves we stumble on in schools, churches, nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, streetcorners...