Correct Language Doesn’t Correct Injustice
February 27, 2021

As part of America’s culture wars, the Right loves to go bananas over banalities, like the fact that, last week, Hasbro made Mr. Potato Head gender-neutral by dropping the “Mr.”

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Be The Change  / philosophy  / Politics  / Prose

Another Ode to Dr. King
January 18, 2021

On the third Monday in January you’ll find me
writing an ode I can’t quite finish, like a New Year’s
resolution I’ll stick to next time, I promise.

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Be The Change  / poetry

Let’s Not Repeat the Error of November 4, 2008
January 1, 2021

“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” – John Lewis

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Politics

Shock and Awe Politics
June 27, 2020

If politics is war, Republicans have historically waged it more ruthlessly, and more successfully, than Democrats and Independents

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Be The Change  / Musings  / Politics

The Righteously Aggrieved
June 22, 2020

When statues topple, they do little heaving.
You will not see them celebrate long their fall
or mount the wreckage on a wall.
(Who are you to ask that they applaud
your moment of awakening?

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America on the Brink  / poetry

Play by the Rules
June 19, 2020

To be trapped in an era, this era,
is the poet’s nightmare and delight. O future
readers—if there will be readers—what will you make
of this? What shall I—what shall we—bequeath you?

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America on the Brink  / poetry  / Politics

How Can We Lose When We’re So Sincere?
June 14, 2020

The true traitor lacks not morals but moral imagination. I shall
no longer grant the premise that we must debate amidst the
rubble of a world the unimaginative have plundered—

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America on the Brink  / poetry  / Politics  / Pragmatic Idealsim

It’s Complicated
June 7, 2020

A friend texted to say it’s irresponsible to protest during a pandemic. All those people
crowded together become vectors for the virus, which doesn’t care about race. I hadn’t
thought of Covid-19 as post-racial, the enlightened bug.

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America on the Brink  / poetry  / Politics

Helium
May 29, 2020

The last thing he saw was the joy in her eyes.

Back home the flowers have wilted and the balloon,
twisting slowly in the now-stale air,
sinks lower and lower to the ground.

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America on the Brink  / poetry

Manumission
May 27, 2020

I so want to be optimistic and airy, to write of
our generous spirit, to wax poetic about moon landings

and beach landings, entrepreneurship, sliced bread,
the assembly line, the World Wide Web. It feels un-American

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America on the Brink  / poetry  / Politics