Category: Poetry

Exploration

The music of an oud
dances across the room
as we lie in bed together
at the end of a full day.
We started with tea
in a cafe near the hotel,
then visited an artist friend,
a record store,
and a trans bookstore.
A typical day for us,
no matter where we are.
We followed the St. Lawrence
from Montreal to Québec,
then ate ramen
in a restaurant where the staff
spoke Fraponaise.
Tomorrow it’ll be more records
and books and anarchist shops,
then a punk show at night,
later than we’re usually awake.
The joy of exploring new places
is magnified by doing it with you.
Two brains and two hearts
combining to see and feel more
than either could alone.

/ / /

20 February 2025
Québec

The Blizzard Of ’25

George, our server, said
the city hasn’t seen this much snow
since the 1800s.

We’d taken a winding track
through narrow neighborhood streets
made even more impassable

by six-foot drifts on each side.
Buried sidewalks meant the shreds of street
were filled with people,

stumbling and slipping on the way home.
From inside the Syrian restaurant
it all seemed like a distant memory

as we sipped cilantro mocktails
and sliced into fried cheese dumplings
with a tomato and quince jam.

The trouble with travel, I always find,
is the having to go back, just when
you were imagining you wouldn’t.

/ / /

18 February 2025
Montreal

Elephant

We eat vegetable tikka and baija,
talking about TV shows,
prog rock performances,
role-playing games.
We see the elephant in the room.
Eventually we walk over to look at it.
It sits there, quietly taking up space,
breathing in more oxygen than we do,
subtly coloring the air with its smell.
The elephant comes for all of us in time.
When we see it approach,
the most we can do is to find those we love,
pull them close, share a laugh in a cold wind.

/ / /

17 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

Confronting A Difficult Truth In Middle-Age

I’m the kind of person
who wears turtlenecks
unironically.

/ / /

12 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

Quantum Entanglement

We’re all trying to step
off the merry-go-round,
but we’re strapped to the horses,
whose grins are maniacal,
whose hooves never quite
touch the ground,
while the calliope plays
on and on and on.

/ / /

11 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

That’s It For Tonight

I couldn’t face leaving the house again
so I had groceries delivered
which meant they were twice as expensive
as if I’d just gone shopping
and then when the delivery person
dropped them off and I
stepped outside to get them
the kitten escaped and ran off
into the neighborhood
and it took two separate rounds
of chasing him with a flashlight
over the course of nearly two hours
until he was finally back in the house
and just as I got settled down
to write this poem describing it all
the neighbor knocked on the door
to let me know the kitten got out
but I told him the kitten was back
and that’s it for tonight.

/ / /

10 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

No Thanks, Professor

And in the end
they crowned a king
because his friend
destroyed a ring.

But we need neither
king nor steeple:
return all power
to the people.

/ / /

9 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

All My Dreams Are Of Escape, Part 2

Every day I fight the urge
to get in my car and drive
until I max out my credit cards
buying gas and roadside food,
leaving behind me a question
shaped like emptiness.

/ / /

6 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

All My Dreams Are Of Escape

All I’ve ever wanted to be
is half of an elderly couple
at the grocery store,
puttering from aisle to aisle,
oohing over the sales,
tsking at the price of bread,
then making small talk with the cashier
while a high school kid packs the bags,
never imagining they’ll ever be old.

/ / /

5 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

You’ve Got To Accentuate The Positive

Think of all the Amazon boxes
we can use to make fires
during the water wars.

/ / /

3 February 2025
Charlottesville VA