Category: My poems

Building The Box That Holds Everything

First you build the box, then you fit inside the box all the things you can think of. All your hopes and dreams and fears and rages, all the things you’ve told someone and all the things you’ll never tell. / Put these inside the box. It doesn’t matter how many there are. The box can hold them. / The next step is to put the lid firmly on the box. / THIS STEP IS CRUCIAL. / This is the step where many fail. They place the lid too gently or are not careful to ensure it is sealed tightly, holding all the things inside. Do not become another statistic. Press down on the lid until you hear the faint, almost whispering sound of the last little bit of air escaping. / The final step requires the most creativity. Where can you hide the box to ensure that no one will find it? This is simpler if you live alone, but even then you yourself may be tempted to open it, which of course cannot be allowed. Ask yourself, how do I keep the box safe from everyone, including myself? / Once you discover this place, put the box there and erase it from your mind. There. You’re safe.

/ / /

16 January 2025
Charlottesville VA

Gravity & Equilibrium

The trick to swinging
across an open trestle bridge
is knowing how long a rope you’ve got
and whether, on the other side,
someone will be there to catch you.
/ / /
15 January 2025
Charlottesville VA

Life Coach

I try to start the day
with rage
because I could die
at any moment
and I wouldn’t want
to go out happy.

/ / /

14 January 2025
Charlottesville VA

The United States Is Evil
And Must Be Destroyed
(Part 2,025)

This morning
before the doctor
had even entered the room,
while my partner
was writhing in pain,
a nice person came in
to ask for payment.

/ / /

13 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

Food Not Bombs

There was no school for a few days
so families ran out of food.
Read that again.
Bombs to drop on Palestinians?
Here’s a blank check.
But five inches of snow
means our children go to sleep hungry.
This isn’t a poem, it’s a scream.

/ / /

11 January 2025
Charlottesville VA

Left On The Side Of The Road,
Within Sight Of The GE Plant

The lesson was learned young:
You have no inherent value,
and love can be taken away.
What child has the strength to resist?
Half a century of therapy and meds,
meditation and distance,
and still each morning brings
a renewal of doubt.
The winter sun is indifferent.
It shines on the worth and the lost alike.

/ / /

8 January 2025
Charlottesville VA

The Ice Storm Of ‘91

Morning meditation to the soft tapping of sleet.
Snowfall in the night birthed a new world.
My partner is asleep. A wet-footed kitten
stalks the living room, leaving tracks.

I’m carried back to March 1991:
stepping onto the porch in a crystalline world,
the gunshots of snapping branches
echoing through the woods.

The electricity was out all over upstate New York.
We heated with wood, but no power meant
no water from our well. Dad was away,
so Mom and Gretchen and I

piled into the Escort to fill up water jugs
at the tiny volunteer fire department.
The hilly drive was a nightmare
of slipping and skidding and sliding.

For decades after the scars of the storm
were visible in the area;
whole swathes of felled trees,
the clearings where they once stood.

And for several days, everything stopped:
industry, education, commerce,
all subservient to ice.

/ / /

6 January 2025
Charlottesville VA

Four Rooms

Each month I pay nearly half my income
to a rich person I’ve never met
for the privilege of four rooms:
a living room/kitchen, a bathroom,
a laundry closet, a bedroom.
We evolved in a garden.
We built a concrete box.

/ / /

4 January 2025
Charlottesville VA