poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
A Modern Hamlet
To build or to run.
That is the question.
Whether it’s better to stay,
to sink roots, to fight,
or to give in to the urge to escape,
and by running to arrive in a place
where every day isn’t a struggle to survive.
There’s the rub. No Eden exists,
but there are places with healthcare,
with social safety nets,
places where fascism is, if not absent,
slightly further from control.
/ / /
29 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
Love & Rage
This plane we’re on is crashing.
The masks have fallen from above.
I adjust my own then help the person beside me.
*
My heart is full of love and rage.
I float and shake.
I dream and plan.
*
As a kid I wanted to be
a paleontologist, to study beings
so much larger than myself.
*
The sound of the wind has now covered
even the whine of the engines.
Flames lick the wings.
*
Later I decided to be a priest.
I audited a seminary class,
still wanting to connect to the immense.
*
Soon many questions will be answered.
Or none at all.
I grip the armrests and wait.
/ / /
28 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Countdown
The clock is ticking on the final days of empire.
Fires burn in the west, floods drown the east.
We can never kill enough or steal enough
or inflict enough pain to keep the walls from falling.
Everyone on Earth could have a home and food,
education and clothing and medical care,
but the empire is ravenous and cannot allow it.
The ticking of the clock grows louder.
In these days of lawlessness and greed,
in these times of savagery and decay,
the urge to lash out, to harm, to seek revenge,
is difficult to resist. It feels justified.
There is a place for anger. There is a place for justice.
There is even a place for violence.
But first we must build community.
We must build bonds they cannot break,
not with their tanks and their bombs
and their bombs and their guns.
Our unity must be such that even in Room 101,
even as the cage is lowered and we hear the rats,
we stay true to one another. There are more of us than them.
We cannot stop the clock, but we can decide
for whom the bell tolls.
/ / /
27 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
The second couplet is a paraphrase of a line from the movie Tombstone.
The ninth couplet is a paraphrase of lyrics from “Zombie” by The Cranberries.
While We’ve Still Got Borders
There shouldn’t be countries at all.
There are, though, so for now
one of those countries should be Palestine
and none of them should be Israel.
You can’t build your home
on the ruins of the homes you’ve stolen.
(I’m not immune to irony. I know where I live.)
In the end the borders will be washed away.
Probably literally.
It won’t be Pangaea.
It will just be what’s left.
A few of us, scattered across the landscape,
watching the vines reclaim our achievements.
For now, though, there should be Palestine.
/ / /
26 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Progress
There’s a long line for the traffic light
outside the grocery store.
We’re all stuck in our little boxes,
mostly in ones and twos,
on a strip of asphalt and concrete
where there used to be trees.
Two vultures glide
through the intersection,
then soar off.
The line creeps forward.
The light turns red again.
/ / /
25 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
The Moment When I Fell In Love
They leaned in close,
put one hand over mine,
whispered in my ear:
“Punch more Nazis.”
/ / /
24 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Late Coltrane(s)
John and Alice
built a living space:
walls of strings,
saxophone ceiling,
windows to the soul,
a door to infinity.
/ / /
23 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Heaven In The Record Store
Nineteen, browsing the bins
at the lone record store in Potsdam, NY.
I walked out with three CDs:
The Berkley Concert by Lenny Bruce,
The Juliet Letters by Elvis Costello,
and Culture At Work by Culture.
Lenny because I’d found an album
in the stacks at my college radio station.
Elvis because I’d just heard
“Everday I Write The Book.”
Culture for reasons I can’t remember.
What context did I have for this music?
I grew up in a place with no record store,
the nearest one at the mall 30 minutes away.
Now here I was in a college town,
meeting new people who knew
way more music than I did,
with a well-stocked record store
and a tiny bit of money I’d saved up.
Heaven is a place where they have all the bands.
/ / /
22 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
a mis compas
(a memory of A16)
a stranger beside me
as the horses charged
spurred by armored pigs
batons swinging
we were against a low wall
the stranger and me
maybe a dozen others
2,000 pounds of people
10,000 pounds of horses
we slid along the wall
like swiftly moving shadows
escaping the charge
just as the teargas started
/ / /
21 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Now is not the time for metaphors
Meet your neighbors.
Build your cells.
Gather supplies.
Learn skills.
Stay loud.
Stay focused.
Stay angry.
Stay compassionate.
Cops aren’t your friends.
Soldiers aren’t your friends.
Politicians aren’t your friends.
Bosses aren’t your friends.
Now is not the time for despair.
Now is not the time for silence.
Now is not the time for metaphors.
Now is the time for action.
/ / /
20 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Today in Palestine
Returning to rubble isn’t going home.
It’s a start, though.
Streets filled with skulls, many with
sniper holes in the foreheads,
aren’t streets for children.
It’s a start, though.
Flattened schools, bombed-out hospitals,
dust that chokes the lungs,
turning the world gray;
this isn’t victory.
It’s a start, though.
Here in the “first world” –
so named for our self-regard
rather than our advancement –
we bear the guilt, the blood,
the shattered lives of millions.
This ceasefire will not repay that debt.
It’s a start, though.
/ / /
19 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Birdsong
Listen to Ray Bryant (Prestige 7098)
while the kitten sleeps
on his high perch in the sun
between two Palestinian flags
we’re using as curtains
because fuck landlords that’s why.
Ray’s piano is clearly audible
over the sound of no bombs.
Ike Isaacs’ bass is right there, too,
unobscured by drones or gunfire.
Nobody’s screaming interferes
with Specs Wright’s brushwork.
Every note of John Lewis’s “Django”
floats over the comfortable silence
like birdsong.
/ / /
18 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
Fast Fashion & The Guillotine
David Gahan was 21 when he sang
“the grabbing hands grab all they can.”
He turns 63 in May and that sentence
is even more true.
I’m reminded of the song because
I watched the video tonight,
projected onto my wall and pouring
out of my stereo speakers.
I watched it while eating
peanut-butter-filled pretzels
and drinking a Hank’s root beer.
It’s the very availability
of what passes for contentment
in our modern world
that prevents us from solving
the problem David sang about.
/ / /
17 January 2025
Charlottesville VA
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