Society
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
To Never Know Nana’s Favorite
You’ll always be the story
with an unknown
ending.
A plot not allowed to unfold.
A premature climax.
An unlikely protagonist.
An unsuspecting conflict.
A setting of details unwanted.
A … 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
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
Welcome to Hustlers University
They insist he’s a hero, a champion of all men.
They insist his word is sacred, an oath to follow.
They insist
They insist
They insist.
They insist her word … Read more