To Choose

When you choose, you are deciding one or the other. No in between. Choose between, pick one or the other. Choose, decide, pick, select, appoint, select, pick, decide, choose. Turn toward, turn away, agree, disagree, consent, deny, smile, frown. When you choose, you answer “Who am I?” And when you answer, you know the sort […]

Finished Yet?

When can I be done? When we have enough to be finished. But when will that be? I’m tired. My fingers hurt and my back is sore. I’m sorry, sweetie, but we don’t have enough to be finished. But … Quiet, now. Complaining won’t get it done any faster. Why are you crying? Hush. Let’s […]

Voices Unheard

We’re not listening, there is no ‘new’ way no ‘new’ cause no ‘new’ reason it’s the same as it ever was Too late, we feel it tragic loss incomprehensible loss senseless loss A glimpse, wasted now, at the unknowable pain fractured heart pleading soul Messages clear but unanswerable changes unable to be made the softness […]

When Your Time Is Up

You know what you can’t do Without drawing attention? You can’t sprawl out on the sidewalk. Head down, resting on the concrete, watching a bug. Feet up, kicking. I guess you can, if you’re eight or ten. You could lie there for hours rubbing a rock back and forth And no one would bat an […]

All This Wind

You shouldn’t be here. Not with all this Wind. Tendrils torn Sweeping loss, flakes of flesh Bits pealed away Steal away up to the sky This Wind. Tumbling, stumbling, skittering down the street. Pressed to a wall, a fence, a tree Brief rest before whisking off rolling, tearing, crumbling chunks of muscle The side of […]

How Change Happens

Stop doing the things you say you disagree with.

maybe it’s time for you to go

dinner isn’t ready. it won’t be. the stove is broken, the heating element snapped. there isn’t a clean dish in this house and we’re out of soap anyway. our food has spoiled. each veggie stalk moldy. fruit turned to mush. the bread ready for a penicillin harvest. there’s blood in the freezer, the meat thawed and […]

On Making Plans

Go ahead. It doesn’t matter. I’ll do what I want and you can fuck off.

A Move to the Woods

I’d like to go for a walk in the woods A forest A grove A riverbank A valley A wet grassland A secluded marsh Along a fallen log I would find a tree and climb it And sit for awhile See the plants The birds The insects The amphibians The mollusks The mammals The reptiles I’d […]

Civic Education

Public Policy Levels of Government Don’t be an idiot Learn who to contact Who does What Cooperate Identify Propose Approach Communicate It isn’t hard Just do it Do it anyway