poetry

126 posts
Be The Change

Meditations on the Moon

The moon, cold and pockmarked and hard, is not dainty. The moon belches starlight, has no gender.

· 1 min read
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...

· 1 min read
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...

· 1 min read
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...

· 1 min read
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.

· 1 min read
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.

· 1 min read
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...

· 1 min read
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

· 1 min read
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...

· 1 min read
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

· 1 min read
Be The Change

Sous les pavés, la plage

Too much talk of revolution makes me hungry, and there is little in the fridge that makes one believe in a better world:

· 1 min read
Be The Change

Black Friday: A Haiku

Leaves gather like un- sold goods. Need help, asks the rake. Just browsing, I say.