Posts for June 22, 2026 (page 3)

8:30:  immediate images of hungry   
refugees, mothers clasping starving babies.
An Air Force airman set himself afire:  
I WILL NO LONGER BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE 

Humans are biologically hardwired
to habituate to grossly immoral deeds,
one article says – war, oppression, extremism,
you name it.  Not all, this airman cries.   

Yet we are not habituated to the trials
of marriage, apparently.  People are marrying less,
this called the closing of the American heart.    

Not all.  I now open the daily photos from “bebe”
Adam’s parents, not for my e-dessert reprieve,
but first thing.  He with cherry cheeks and inquisitive
eyebrows, today wrapped in sunny towel with
duck beak on top, his fist full of fettuccine.   

This same day, a deep sea robot reveals
that Chilean fishing restrictions have bolstered
biodiversity.  A wiggling glassy blue disjointed worm
casts an aura of bright orange dust.   

This must be the magic that Adam’s parents
believe in when they, too, push the headlines
aside, click their camera with delight, and post.

leaves dance with the wind
    sometimes graceful otherwise wild
music stops they wait

Another day they didn’t listen,
but who can blame them
when they don’t know fact from fiction.

I come home irritated,
and refrain from bitchin’
because that ain’t the first thing my wife should see.

I’m glad the workday is done,
so now I can have fun at home
with the people I’ve been missing.
Park my car,
shift my heart,
and put the past in remission.

I’m grateful for my life
and the home that I live in,
the sunsets I see
And the friends that come visit.

I have found a peace with the things that get at me ,
for they never outweigh the things that make me happy.

I used to escape with a bottle or a pill,
but who needs a vacation when you own a forest and a hill.

Thunder crept up in the dark,
electric night air charged and ready
to crack the predawn sky
until it breaks, bursts, explodes
with the relief of a cold rain.
A summer downpour delivered
by the solstice and steam rising
from the hot rock of a gravel road.
I stand at the kitchen window
and watch a resurrection,
eerie in the ambient light of a storm
and a sunrise pushed aside.
Lightning bolts illuminate ghosts
hovering in the fog, barefoot and restless
pulled from some eternal sleep
in a hidden country graveyard
to go for one more meandering walk
while the veil is thin.
Mamaw got struck one time,
a human conductor for a celestial spark.
They put her little feet in water
and watched the washtub go green. 

i love you

but all the strings are attached

and our quota isn’t met

just my heart beat blue

curse blade

Rusty scum ringing

The clean green water

Like light hazel eyes

Wake boards, jet skis, pontoons

Skimming the surface

Ripples drawing the mud

Closer to the center

Of lake Norris

Thunder drowning out

the talking teens’ thumping

Music, the pink pony club,

Drifting in and out

As we laze on the deck

Waiting for the storm

As part of the human experience
we are expected to navigate
          a nonnegotiable duality –
          alongside joy there is always loss
and yet when these two domains collapse upon one another
the void in that space feels otherworldly.
Keeping the flame of serenity flickering
in a deluge of despair
seems like a god-like feat
beyond the reaches of my finite human capacity.
Being in the room, sharing air,
in the moment that his life’s breath was extinguished
          has diminished my own
my adjacent mourning
          an acceptable penance
as I continue on, joy intact.

6/22/26
Rest easy, Paul 💜

No more rain, just something black
up there keeps spinning its yarn.

The lamb we slaughtered yesterday
moves across the sky.

It pressed its little hornless head
into our hands, waiting to be petted.

Its meek nature of a male lamb
served us very well.

Moved by some ancient bloodthirst,
we then ate and drank.

And that bitter blood won’t soak into the earth—
it just will not soak in.

Mud runs along the road, and in the cellars,
frogs and carp are breeding.

From the taps, as if from a deep wound,
red mud keeps dripping.

They who have lost their land, a house, a dear friend
look down, let out a mournful cry.

They who have lost it all to water
stare at the sky.

The waves of mind
demand so much of Silence.
But She does not talk back
does not give answers nor arguments.
She is the hidden author of every thought
every fleeling
every moment.

Silence.

She speaks only one word.
And that word is this very existence.
No name you give Her
touches Her
captures Her.
No understanding
can embrace Her.

Mind throws itself at Silence
demanding to be let into
Her radiant darkness
Her pure and smiling
nothingness.

The mind hurls itself
into sacred questions.
But Silence remains
unmoved by the tantrums.
She asks only for nothing.

Nothing.

But you won’t give it to Her
because it is the last coin
in your pocket.
And you would rather
give her demands than
your sacred and empty hands.

ADYASHANTI [from my secert is SILENCE]