Just once
when I bring you
a different perspective
or outside-the-box idea
instead of detailing
how and why
it could never work
would it kill you
to simply say thanks
for the suggestion?
It was like her mind was preoccupied,
with fantasies of a fairytale world,
beyond everyone’s understanding but hers.
Why do some girls never realize,
you can only be a princess in your dreams?
It’s time to wake up sleeping beauty,
and notice how the makeup made you ugly while you slept.
Mascara dripping from your teary eyes,
and yesterday’s lipstick smudged over your face.
You’re nothing but a cheap streetwalker.
Learn your history,
know your past,
listen to the names,
make them last.
Recognize your home place,
smell the earth that raised you.
Feel the touch of familiar skull,
hold the hands that made you.
Visit as an immigrant
learning a new culture.
Let the voices sink into your soul,
resonating throughout your nature.
Invest your heart in forgiving
lives and times that came before.
Aknowledge the mistakes and glories
without keeping score.
All that you are is a rich combination
of these names etched in stone,
all the love you can give and
the seeds that you’ve sown.
6/22/25
KW
Social media’s pointing fingers again
and the echo chambers are rumblin’.
People who live in worlds
shrinking within Reddit
are frothing at the mouth
with logical fallacies
and fabricated sources
that they’re still convinced
destroy your argument
no matter how many times
someone has to realitysplain them.
The same blender
of ad hominem labels
and strawmen goons
go to war on the battlegrounds
of buzzwords and bigotry
while ‘Fake News’ flies
every which way, both as
cries against disagreeable truth
and actual misinformation,
not to mention the trolls
getting their jollies
yoinking on your foibles
to keep the follies falling.
Not me, though,
not anymore.
When the new phone asked
what apps to reinstall
I declared
Fuuuuuck no to Facebook.
Writing this poem reminds again
to reduce Reddit to memory;
maelstrom media’s gonna miss me,
but I won’t be missing it.
We’re purifying the newsgathering
talking to real people
having real conversations
engaging with the real world.
And the effects are instant.
I’m more at peace with myself
if not exactly at peace
with the way things are
but when the shit’s
not in your face so much
everything smells a little bit nicer–
think I’m gonna stay here.
‘Cause you’re never gonna change a mind on the Internet
but you’ll certainly change your soul
going outside
and touchin’ some grass.
A slight smile cut his wrinkled face.
Slowly he nudges several long grains
from his worn lacquer bowl onto the granite surface.
His longtime companion wing-flapped
and claw-hopped to perch next to him,
grey beak airborne after each eaten piece.
Six bald orange-robed figures strode
quietly to his side. Nodding to them, he rose
and stood by while they bowed, then lifted
the limestone cover of his mausoleum.
Every day a young acolyte places
a tiny bowl of rice on the aging stone.
Every day a crow eats the rice, and flips
the bowl over with a clatter when finished.
A decade passes. A small boy in orange
places the bowl, and sits to wait. The crow
arrives, almost blind now, with a stone
clutched in its gray beak.
Ignoring the bowl, the crow taps the limestone with its pebble.
The young boy nods when he hears the return tapping from below.
4 f0ld3d p4p3r, 7uck3d ju57 50—
und3r y0ur c0ff33 mug,
1n5id3 4 b00k y0u’r3 r34d1ng.
L1ttl3 wh15p3r5, ju57 f0r y0u,
f0und wh3n y0u l345t 3xp3c7 7h3m,
ju57 4 l1ttl3 m3, f0r y0u.
she walks away from me
after saying this:
“You wait right here.
I’ll be right back. I promise.”
one day will be different:
she will not return or
upon returning find
no one’s waiting anymore
how many more times
will we reunite
here in this life–
I ask myself tonight
one day will be different:
she will not return or
upon returning find
no one’s waiting anymore
her return today means
separation will come
just as my present breath
assures my final one
one day will be different:
she will not return or
upon returning find
no one’s waiting anymore
one day will be different:
she will not return or
upon returning find
no one’s waiting anymore
no one’s waiting anymore
Mohammed, the man I killed, wakes me.
“It is quiet, Johnny,” he says.
“So?” I look at his eyes,
the only bright spot on his body.
“Much too quiet.”
Mohammed is hard to understand but
I can see his thoughts.
He’s worried that something
is about to explode.
“Insha’Allah,” he says, “things are changing.”
“Like Allah will make us less dead?”
Mohammed’s been in denial since we got here.
“May Allah give us more to see than fighting and
killing when we look upon the earth,” he says.
“Don’t count on it,” I tell him; “there will always
be another war somewhere to watch.”
His expression withers so I ask him, “What
could make this infernal watching bearable?”
“Hassan’s face,” he replies with a broad smile.
“Wouldn’t that make you more miserable?”
“No, Johnny, no. When I see Hassan, then
somehow, I will make my son hear me.”
“What good will that do?”
“I will tell him I am fine.”
“Fine? Mohammed, you’re fucking dead.”
He places his hand over his heart.
“I will tell him I love him.” Again he looks
hopeful. “We should be friends, Johnny.”
“Why?”
“Because for eternity you may be the only
person in Paradise for me to talk to.”
“Getting chummy won’t change anything.”
“Yes, but for Hassan I must put hatred
aside and become a better man.”
“By forgiving me for killing you?”
This man is incredible.
Mohammed shrugs. “You shoot me,
I shoot you. We both die. Friends now?”
“Why the hell not,” I say to stop him from praying.
“Do not make fun of me, Johnny.”
“Look at my thoughts if you don’t believe me.”
Mohammed protests, “Never would I
“violate you in that way.”
“For Christ’s sake, why not?”
“Is it not wrong to take your
Lord’s name in vain?”
A fool and his sermons.
And Mohammed thinks this is paradise.
“Johnny,” Mohammed pulls on my arm.
“Look, down there.”
Soldiers pour from their tanks, shouting,
Women emerge, laughing and singing,
coaxing the soldiers to dance.
Mohammed waves wildly at a boy
who is looking straight at us.
An officer raises his fist as he calls out,
“It’s over.”
“Thank God,” I cry as I grab Mohammed.
“I am a fool my friend,” he says, “but praise
Allah you are not the infidel you try to be.”
