the electric choir:
hybrid cars outcompete
the dawn chorus
///
16 October 2025
Charlottesville VA
Category: Poem-A-Day 2025
The Big Lots Is Gonna Be A Church
The Big Lots is gonna be a church.
The Toys R Us is gonna be a chapel.
We’ll sing hymns facing Geoffrey the giraffe,
get our bibles off discounted pallets.
At this point it’s the best we can do;
to pray on the altar of capital.
Like in that story where Jesus
set up shop in the temple
selling wine he’d made himself.
/ / /
10 October 2025
Charlottesville VA
the teacher & the doctor
for Abby & Erik-Stephane
to love deeply
is to step beyond the wall
that could protect you
choosing instead to be a shield
for those who have no wall
to love deeply
is to listen, to speak,
to shout, to scream
for those who are not voiceless
but ignored
to love deeply
is to hold each life
in a sacred grasp
to feel the heartbeat
as it harmonizes with your own
to love deeply
is to do all this
when your own future is unclear
to trust in one another
to light the way
/ / /
8 October 2025
Charlottesville VA
Here Comes The Flood
Eventually this dam’s
gonna break
when it does
I wouldn’t wanna be
some outta touch
asshole in a shiny suit
admiring his reflection
in a coin with his face on it
because when the water
comes rushing through
the shiny suits and coins
will be the first things
washed out to sea.
/ / /
4 October 2025
Charlottesville VA
Several years ago, I released a few poetry and music tracks via Adam Gnade’s label Hello America Stereo Cassette. Ever since, I’ve wanted to make an album of my poetry with (mostly) other people’s music. This past Tuesday, I decided to just do it. I emailed a dozen musicians and asked if they’d each send me two minutes of music by Friday. Ten of them did. I set myself the restriction of making the entire album between when I awoke on Saturday and when I went to bed on Sunday. This album is the result.
This is a pay-what-you-want album. Any and all money received will go to Ele Elna Elak, an organization that provides drinking water and education to children in Gaza displaced by Israel’s ongoing genocide. Neither I nor any musician on this album will make any money from it. So when you’re setting your price, keep that in mind. Thank you.
If you’d like to donate to them directly and cut out the middle-mouse, you’ll find them at eleelnaelak.org. If you donate directly, I’d love to know. Drop a line to fievel42@pm.me.
Leave a CommentOn The Day Assata Died
On the day Assata died
a mass murderer spoke
to an empty room
about why it’s OK to kill people.
He was wearing a two-dollar button
with a link to a video
that he said would show everyone
why he needed to keep killing
men and women and children and
non-binary folks in the name of justice.
There was nobody left in the room
to look at his video
but don’t get it twisted;
they had filled that same chamber
many times before and done nothing
to stop the killing
because in the end
that’s not what they’re there for.
They sit in that room
day after day
year after year
to make us believe there are rules,
to cover the hellmouth with politeness.
But Assata died one thousand three hundred miles
from her home place
because in the end
they always let the killer speak.
///
26 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
listening to Geese
not the ones you’re thinking of
they’ve gone south
///
26 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
But for real, listen to this album.
Leave a Commentupside-down squirrel
runs toward the ground
tail puffed by autumn breeze
/ / /
25 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
gentle rain falling
next door, machinery starts
never mind
/ / /
24 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
Unanswered Questions
So many of my elders died
before I knew who I was.
Is that a loss or a blessing?
Could I have explained to Grandma
(who never liked my triangle pendant)
that I was no longer her grand-son
but instead her grand-something-else?
Would the Franciscan friar
who christened me “Jaybird”
have thought, to himself or aloud,
that a queer mouse must burn?
/ / /
20 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
for I.F. Gonzales
Leave a Comment8 Minutes Ago
eight minutes ago
the sun was still shining
that’s all I can tell you
if it were suddenly to die
we’d all go blissfully on
long enough to play
“You Learn” by Alanis Morissette
twice
which is ironic
92 million miles
at 186,000 miles a second
you can check my math
Alanis would be singing
“you live, you learn” one last time
then click – lights out
seven days later
we’d all be freezing
in a year it would be -100°F
under their frozen surfaces
the oceans would stay liquid
for hundreds of thousands of years
most plants would die
in a few weeks
some tress could make it decades
the $64,000 question,
to quote Pink:
“what about us?”
we could live in submarines
in the very deep oceans
which doesn’t sound great
the better choice:
geothermal or volcanic heat
could keep us going for years
prepare yourself now, is my advice
take a page from Blofeld’s book
get yourself a volcano lair
you don’t want to be
the only person without one
when Alanis stops singing
/ / /
18 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
head down, eyes on screen
he misses
the sparrow, completely
/ / /
13 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
the rainbow I want to see
forms in a puddle of gasoline
pooling below a row of Molotov cocktails
a riot not a parade
they’re not coming for us
they’re already here
that warmth you feel
is the breath of the enemy
uniformed like a dark patch of night
light glinting off a truncheon
grab a brick, break a bottle
sharpen your knives and axes
this is the hour when we fight
/ / /
6 September 2025
Charlottesville