Society

Space

A grapefruit-sized meteorite
crashed through the ceiling of a bedroom
in a New Jersey home, and people are barely
talking about the circumstances of the intrusion.

Maybe there are too … Read more

Explosion

How to describe history’s grotesque
face, still half-hidden under a mask
of deceit. In some countries, hide
and seek is not a game.
In some homes, the bodies curled inside … Read more

The Crowning

The afternoon moves at the stop-start-stop
again pace of the mail van
with its messages from long-lost friends
and freshly minted bills to answer
by the next hundred-degree day
which, … Read more

Don’t Take my World

Today I walked familiar streets,
stood where avenues cross,
where people meet.
I smiled at a lady with a toddler in hand,
bought a pretzel at the corner stand,
saw … Read more

A Week of Shootings

The black kid who rang the wrong doorbell
expecting his siblings is recovering at home.

The white teenage cheerleaders fled
after one climbed in a mistaken car.
One was treated … Read more

On Lies Many Shapes

My 4th-grade math teacher would categorize lies by shape and weight. Headaches on test days were triangles (angles acute and obtuse). Bruised knees and hallway trips were trapezoids (competing sides, … Read more

Terror

terror in innocent daycare eyes
terror in insolent teenage lies
terror in all our daily plans
terror in all Americans
terror in parks where children play
terror by night
terror … Read more

Got Your Goat

The 4-H program, Shasta County Fair
has reaped a world of trouble we just read.
A little girl asked them her goat to spare
but no, authorities wanted it dead.… Read more

The Presidency

José Mujica ascended to the presidency
and kept his three-bedroom bungalow
a stone’s throw from Rio De La Plata
in Montevideo gave nearly his entire
presidential salary to charity spent … Read more

American Gothic

after Grant Wood

She sits in her Adirondack chair
on the front porch of a summer afternoon,
overlooking the cutting garden
in her Confederate flag t-shirt
knitting shotgun shells with … Read more

Unpermitted Encroachments

(SF city notice to remove a Little Free Library from a sidewalk)

It’s what they call a feature story,
not mainstream news,
about the little free library,
not a building … Read more

Wokeness

Wokeness is a rising tide,
A force for good, a source of pride.
It seeks to break down barriers,
And lift voices that have been silenced for years.

It’s not … Read more

Homelessness in Denver

 

Amidst the bustling streets, where life moves fast,
There walks a man who’s been living in the past.
With an intimate knowledge of Denver’s roads,
He’s spent eleven years … Read more