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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

To Persist, Resist

Posted in Poetry, Politics, tagged , , , , , , on 23 Oct 2025| Leave a Comment »

don’t give in to the maelstrom’s song
the downward spiral toward denial
of what your bones know is righteous or wrong

don’t let the harmonies that sing in your blood
go quiet and numb, muffled and choked
by the unfeeling actions of criminal hearts

there’s so much so much this onrushing tide
of gleeful cruelty and polished-brass venality that
to think of nothing to jettison hope can seem the softer path

but love dies when hearts go silent
and despair takes root when tears dry up
numbness saves no one not others not us

so let the feelings come seek them out
lean in and swim with the building wave
shout out rise up and take the beachhead

for this is a fight we dare not lose

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With Paper Before Me

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on 09 Oct 2025| Leave a Comment »

with paper before me and
a pen in my hand
a cloud is
rising blooming billowing scudding
cumulus nimbus a thunderhead
dark foreboding airy bright

with paper before me and
a brush in my hand
a cloud is
gradients reflective limned
shadowed grey sunlit white
rounded flat-topped

with paper before me and
nothing in my hand
a cloud
is

 

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Birthplace

Posted in Creativity, Poetry, tagged , , , , , on 03 Oct 2025| 1 Comment »

I was born of Pacific waters
bathed in their colors of stone and sky
swam their frigid swells and troughs
to return awakens my heart’s connection
to walk the firm yet yielding sand
to wade knee-deep through the rip
to comb a fiver’s worth of unbroken dollars
to have my ankles caressed by sea foam
to greet the sunrise and kiss the sunset
to hear my father’s words echo
“Never turn your back on the ocean”
though I do, if only to see my world
as the ocean views it
a dark forbidding challenge
to its unparalleled power
the Pacific is the edge of my existence
it flows in my veins
it nourishes my soul

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To Old Friends

Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 25 Jul 2025| 1 Comment »

to these old eyes
we none of us have aged
and all are as when first we met

though days and years
and decades all
have trundled past our feast

though unforgiving fate
has called a few away
and left their seats unfilled

and loft-bound bitterness
and joy have played for us
their varied minstrel tunes

it’s just the failing candlelight
that limns us each
in haloed wisps of age

for if I squint I once again
can see us clear and bright
with vibrant youth

all straining ‘gainst the slips
and hungry soon
to master dreamed-of hopes

so charge your glass
and be upstanding so
that we may raise a toast

to all we’ve known
and all we’ve loved
and all that yet remains ahead

for life with all its sorrowed pain
is better lived than not
and better still
with friends beside

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Stop

Posted in Creativity, Poetry, tagged , , , on 29 Apr 2025| 1 Comment »

stop
stop
take a moment
stop
listen
hear that?
it’s life
rushing past
at the speed of sound
the tiny earthquake of an infant’s wail
squabbling chickadees on a dew-dropped branch
a sink full of dishes
the dog’s nails snare-drumming on the kitchen floor
cars trucks vans cycles all shushing purring grumbling past
a familiar key in the front door’s lock
voices near, voices far, loud or quiet, laughing, shouting
the fermata of your breath, your heartbeat’s vibrato
a dry fingertip turning a dry page
ice cubes in a tall glass
this
this is life
heard and gone
it is all we are
an ephemeral fabric
uncountable strands
of gossamer

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The Lesson

Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Politics, tagged , , , , , , on 31 Mar 2025| 2 Comments »

What you are trying to teach me?
To harm? To hurt? To hate?
That a worthy reputation
is only built through fear?
That honor is irrelevant,
an antiquated ideal?
That rules, golden or base,
apply only to governed
and not the government?

What do you want me to learn?
Cruelty +  Money = Power?
That everything, even a life,
has a market value?
That caring for others’ well-being
is a sucker’s game?
That discord and outrage
are the privilege of the rulers
and not the ruled?

Because that is not the lesson
your actions drive home.

The lesson I am learning,
the lesson that you teach, is
that bullies have no friends, only sycophants,
that predators prey on individuals, not unified fronts,
that small-minded men use power as a weapon, not as a tool,
that loyalty born of fear lasts only as long as the loyal are afraid,
that plans of destructive intent always birth unplanned consequences,
that masses move slowly, react slowly, but once in motion, stay in motion.

The herd now smells the wolves.
Tick-tock.

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Media

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , , , , , on 13 Feb 2025| Leave a Comment »

I used to write you love letters
with age-old tools
with pen and paper
with flowers delivered to your desk
with gifts left to be found on a car seat

But since then my love has found voice
in other media
in home-baked bread
in racks of clean dishes
in beds made, ready to be rumpled

I write letters
in gestures and gifts of freed time
I sing songs
in tiptoed footsteps on lazy mornings
I craft poetry
in items checked off to-do lists

After so long, so many years,
my words, mere words,
seem insufficient to relate
the depths and breadth
of my heart’s compass

But perhaps a cup of tea
that I know you want
presented without
your having to ask
speaks better of my devotion

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