Daily Affirmation, Day 1
Now I’ve just got to say it
until I mean it.
I’m tired of watching you walk away.
I can’t open the door by myself when you’ve gone.
Please, can’t you stay?
The sun sits too low in the sky, clouds heavy and gray,
no pinks or yellows or purples of a rising dawn.
I’m tired of watching you walk away.
The time comes back to choke me, like a
familiar hand, a familiar bruise. Familiar and withdrawn.
Please, can’t you stay?
One more day, another minute, an unfamiliar delay.
A dream of you turning back, a lie to myself, conclusion foregone.
I’m tired of watching you walk away.
More, more, more—how awful to want, to say,
to beg, to plead. Your flight, my freeze. My fawn.
Please, can’t you stay?
Tomorrow the same, a wounded kind of day.
Sleep, or don’t. Stay awake, choke back every yawn.
I’m tired of watching you walk away.
Please, can’t you stay?
Our city is sad today—
for the past four months, really.
Tears pour from the sky:
monsoon, changing climate.
This is only the beginning.
Chain of command Nonexistent
Chain of fools President, VP & Cabinet
Chain of evidence Irrevelant
Chain, chain, chain Chain, chain, chain
Chain saw Cuts to safety nets
Chain reaction Cowards on the bandwagon
Chain letters Executive orders
Chain chain, chain Chain, chain, chain
Food chain Money above all else
Ball and chain Rule of law
Off the chain Our democracy
Chain, chain, chain Chain, chain, chain
Now they got us where they want us Overwhelmed, confused
But the chain is weak It’s due to break
Don your chain mail Plant your feet
It’s time to fight For our rights
Chain, chain, chain Chain, chain, chain
incomplete snack
unearth roots
New vine,
bright green,
curled end,
small leaf buds?
Or old, dead vine,
light yellow,
dried and bent,
torn leaf remains?
I can’t tell from here.
is the urgent need to vomit
and the speech you utter
is riddled with breaks
in waves of worry
as your brain tries to process
the fact that you
and several thousand coaches, parents, and teenagers
have just evacuated this competition meeting hall
in a panic
created by an unknown agititator on stage.
And then
you start to notice
that some of the people around you
have lost one
or both of their shoes
in this scramble to escape
what turned out to be nothing
but could have been
the end of everything.
Des Moines.
19 June 2025.
Sometimes when we take a good look into the past
and we see injustice and prejudice that ran rampant
It makes me so very sad, yet what is even more sad
is that it exists still today, not only in the same form
from the past, but even more groups of people are
the victims of racism, predjudice, and injustice
We, as a society, need to DO BETTER
As I sat to write,
two spike bucks,
possibly twins this spring,
came out of the woods
to eat apple peelings
I tossed out.
——-
Their spikes were covered
with velvet.
They displayed wild looks
toward the house.
Finally, they ate and turned away.
——
They saw themselves in two old,
discarded mirrors,
and then they bolted
into the woods,
fleeing their own images.
