Posts for June 28, 2025

I don’t need a daddy or a mamala or any other status quo retread,
I want a progressive partner
I don’t need a focus grouped policy book and definitely don’t want a donor email,
I want an American re-vision not just window re-dressing
I don’t need more discount conservatism and corporate shilling,
I want an American union fighting for our rights, our agency, and our future
I don’t need another compromise(d) candidate consecrated by the gerontocracy,
I want grassroots campaigns and 50-state listening tours

I don’t need another blue wall campaign
and prematurely ending primary,
I want my Kentucky blue dot vote counted and heard,
in May and November
Are you listening DNC? Because I’m over you!
You are permanently blocked until you prove you are capable of change.

To be thought half as good,
but to try twice as hard.
To be asked if I could
do tasks without reward. 

To raise her voice is to 
be loud, aggressive, a BITCH.
To raise his voice is to
be assertive leadership.  

To emote is to be
hysterical and weak,
when he would be “sensitive”
and immune to critique. 

To also keep a home,
a family, afloat
is expectation BUT
only if it’s unnoted. 

To “babysit” his child
deserves a rich reward, 
but parenting his child
is so hard after work. 

To keep children alive,
happy, thriving, cared for, 
is only allowed if
career still comes before. 

To be a man in this world
must be so exhausting. 
To be a woman in this world 
is worthy of exhalting.

So what if we did vote the bad man again?
What if we did ricochet an election
inciting a shockwave of guillotines;
family cutting off family,
friends no longer speaking?
What if I sidestepped a pseudonym 
and claimed I myself did the thing?
Would you hate me? Could I blame you?

Truth is, no. I cannot blame traumatics.
Not when I’ve tried so hard to be heard myself.
I know there’s no shortage of people
clinging to some unbelievably shitty beliefs
and if you need to leave messages unread
or Christmases unattended, by all means
take care of yourself. A lot of people are hurting
right now; they need all the strength we can save.

But be cautious, because the infestation
still thrives, still shares the same country
and midterms will be here before you know it.
I myself believe in a winnable few, who
can be course-corrected with appropriate kindnesses.
You may not sway many, may not sway any, but if we don’t
allow growable spaces for the seeking and learning
then division will only keep the wrong men in power.

do wildflowers know
whether they are citified, growing close to sidewalks, streets
or randomly growing in a meadow
their beauty seen by passersby, daily on the move
or rarely anyone
yet all the same, they are wildflowers
expanding, blowing in the breeze
bright, whimsical, free
adept to weather’s whims
smiling at the world
reaching for the sun
often only classified as weeds
beauty nonetheless
color, sprinkled amongst

It may be time to lay road-worn feet to rest,
I’m tired of chasing a love that might never arrive,
And if you ever miss my pursuit,
Or decide to turn back and track me down,

I’ll always meet you halfway…

I had fallen in line, obedient to the rules of the museum at Auschwitz.
We entered a room filled,
floor to ceiling, with cases containing
what had been taken from them;
so unsuspecting some must have been
as they shuffled, much as we do today, not knowing
what horrors would unfold:

Suitcases neatly marked, each with a name
and ahome address, and all that that implies;
some had come in with the canes,
the crutches, the prosthetics, now piled in the next case;
and then the eyeglasses, broken and twisted; and then
the hair, and on we went, as a grey numbness
crept over me like a shield from what we humans cannot bear,
so much horror, so much
loss, so much
humanness; so much reality;

but after all that, it was the case near the end
that penetrated all those barriers the numbness had built;
it was as if all those insidious yellow stars
they had to wear had suddenly converged and
imploded into utter blackness
within the marrow of my own bones,

and these are the only words, the only emotion
I had left:

A lot of good it did those holy souls, 
trembling hands packing, perhaps gently smoothing
before closing the lid,
prayer shawls,
white-tassled and blue and full of trust
for so unholy a journey. What could they have thought,
and how could they have known
that between the train tracks and the impending
shower of cloud,
there would be no shawls,
there would be no time 
even for prayer–

Nie wieder, the sign at the museum entrance reads–

But today, I can only remember
Kyrie.
Kyrie eleison

Have mercy, Lord–
We said we woud never forget–

☆Posted with permission from my Co-Author, Kells.

New Street

So many fond memories
and of course, the best:
the little one named Violet we got to meet.

So many lessons learned,
so many firsts.
But now,
it’s time to say farewell.

If the walls could write,
I like to think
they’d write poetry
of love and loss,
of mistakes made,
and lessons learned.

Now it’s time
to find a new place
to learn,
to grow,
and to begin again. 😌

sharp, so slick, so slimy
sneaky, slowly slithers south

you should have left the snake in the garden
but you put it in your mouth

Homey treats, knick-knacks arrayed
in the shade.                      
                         Fine, but where are
vegetables I expect to see growing
in plastic pots on tables in the patio?  

The tables are there, but almost bare.
There’s only morning sun at a slant,
a squinty light I’ve seen in dreams &
childhood.                  
                     Fine, but I strike a match
and demand an accounting, lest I be
judged.             

What I call a match glints like a knife
held upright as an obelisk in the dark.
I’ll notice this yesterday or tomorrow.