Posts for June 14, 2026 (page 12)

On this Flag Day in America, I reflect on the deeds of possibly our greatest president.  It was a poor kid born in a tiny log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky, who rose to our highest office during a time of conflict and division.  During this turbulent period he never waivered in putting our nation and the people ahead of himself.  Abraham Lincoln was a true leader!

“Of the people, By the people, For the people.”

He protected our democracy
and it wasn’t at small cost
because of President Lincoln
our nation was not lost!

A poet skips town,
absconding

with Scotch eggs
& buttered scones,

the scoundrel!
What a scandal—

he’ll get caught
as he ought

but bloody hell,
who can blame him?

~for Kiah, it happened to me, too

When Karie told us we should do
thirty squats a day
Susan said she does thirty
just using the commode

The red scooter rusting 
in the culvert belongs to a boy 
who’s gotten too big for toys, 
now there is working the controller,
pushing his player through levels, 
past bosses, hours committed
to the dopamine rush
of seeing his avatar 
on the scroll of high scores.

Lame is father
yelling at him to get up,
get out, cut the grass —
For chrissakes, do something
with this day —
dad’s Adderall kicking in,
all do, do, do —

mother asking if he wants 
his favorite mac & cheese
because she’s worried he’s angry,
angry at her, and there goes
her last nerve, off to pilates.

They’re so easy to see through, 
it’s no challenge, really, 
easier than Zelda
or COD or Grand Theft,

this boy’s life, so boring,
game he’s already mastered.

First, I lost my way walking to the Basilica of Saint Praxedes, the shrine of a Roman woman Rome who lost her life defending her new Christian faith. Before her martyrdom she  cared for the bodies of martyrs and collected their blood with a sponge and their bones to be bur-ied. Praxedes was not lost but found and buried where her church now stands. There a Pope named Paschal built today’s church in the ninth century, lost (one might say) in Rome’s urban sprawl. I finally found it after a weary loop to Repubblica and on past Saint Mary Major around the corner. And there I found the great mosaics, but lost the light and had to dig to find a euro to buy illumination. I marveled at my find—colors proclaiming life lost and faith found. And, intending next to find a cartoleria to buy folders to hoard my re-cent research, I felt for my wallet—only to find I had lost it on the basilica’s cold benches (or one of Rome’s pickpockets, “post-graduates in the art,” a friar told me later) “found” it in my open pocket). My theological conclusion:               

Anthony had takenhis feastday off!

A book passed by
recently
on its way to being forgotten
I stopped it in its tracks
asked what it had come for
and learned a way into the mists of future
not otherwise discerned

last night i emptied all the clocks into the bathtub
(they kept clogging time’s artery with their minutes)
earlier, we dragged june across the garden
by its wet sleeves
we said:
“let’s snip off the faded roses”
and we snipped them off
“let’s save the daylight”
and we filled three jars –
the daylight ferments beautifully
beneath the kitchen sink

the good and the bad years sleep together
in the drawer like tangled christmas lights

not saying that with a heavy heart either –
I feel quite spry and light as a feather
(according to recent measurements,
a memory weighs less than a sparrow)

the years are seaweed around my ankles
with small silver fish that nibble at my toes
whenever I pull at a strand of wire-weed
the whole frondy circuit instantly
lights up

the lake god
buttons the night’s shirt
smelling of distant thunder
laughing through mossy teeth
as the sky above lights up too
with its chandelier of bright plump pears
and there’s only so much to do on
this blue dinner plate
left unattended
far too long
in the sink of the universe

The strength I bring
tender and slow draped in soft
fabric no questions

no wondering why
tall trees behind me stalwart
reminding be still

I hate that when I look in the mirror

I see your face

I hate that even though we haven’t seen each other in months I will always have this reminder

I hate that your blood runs in my veins

That we are forever intertwined in this way

That out of everything you decided to be hateful

But most of all

I hate that seeing pieces of you in me

Is something I will never cherish