Posts for June 30, 2026 (page 2)

I took a long walk,
ate some graveyard blackberries
while clearing my mind.

I skirted the edges,
admiring fields and woods,
noting stray markers.

It seems the mowers
have lost sight of them,
fading into the verges.

I straighten some vases,
arrange the cars of a child
gone for many years.

“There you go buddy,”
I whispered, some tears starting-
I didn’t know him.

The concrete angel
knelt nearby, the features worn.
I can’t visit you.

I’ll meet you halfway.
Please come to my dreams tonight,
as you used to do.

Open my register to make change.
Change. Change. Change. Change.
Coins who remodel their faces
to hide their tails behind monuments
built to exonerate, to celebrate
only the righteous moments in history.

Good memories are good memories.
Good is only good when we see
the bad things too.

A faulty deception leaves
a dying human weak.
As we speak of
the widening gyre,
we grasp out
in an attempt
to feel
in a way that makes sense.
Personhood
has never made sense.
Instead,
the paintings on the cave wall
made a map
with which
we are guided home.

You made my heart
        skip
a beat.
You almost knocked me
                                        off my
                                                 feet.
I will…always…
  wait for you.

‘Cause I remember those times
when you were in my arms
…and…
           I remember those times
when you needed a shoulder
    to cry on.

I will always…
  wait…today,
  even in the pourin’ rain.
I will…always…
  wait for you.

I know that I make
—mistakes—
even fall
                on my face.

Oh, please…Oh, please…
                    Forgive me.

‘Cause I remember your smile
…and how beautiful you are,
…and I remember those eyes
…and how hard I fall-ed.

I will always…
  wait…today,
  even in the pourin’ rain.
I will…always…
  wait for you.

It’s over, baby, time has ushered me to crawl back
into the woodwork, holy isolation, that familiar dark.
I’ve disturbed my own vanishing act just to send
a shiver of a verse in your direction. I’ve whittled
away my life, become a termite, chewed the splinters
until I spit concrete. Built an armor with that, fortress
to hide within, and in silent safety sleep. But I returned, 
and with brevity, exigency, gagged up my dregs of peace.
Forfeited mementos, showed you the soft, raw seams 
in the underbelly of my best defenses. God, let me
be anything but honest. I am jaded of this dirty work.
Truth has such an acidic taste. There’s no more life
left to carve from. I’m gnawing marrow now, words
coughed up render sharp and stripped, unapologetic.
But I tire of such brutality, the infliction. I am not harmed,
but I’d rather not shriek from your walls. Don’t let me
crave more things that are not mine. My open mouth
is always hungry, even if opening just to test what rhymes.

i. You Are (By Executive Order)

now subject to
arrest if you don’t
capitalize
TRUMP in whatever context.

ii. Buy Low

Our most traded
commodity is
pure cognitive
dissonance, and stocks are high.

iii. 124 Executive Orders (in)

many less days
after he retook
office again.
Constitutional crisis.

iv. Tap Dancing Trumpites

These sycophants 
think they’ll be riding
velvet coattails
of emperor with no clothes.

v. The True Gulf (of) 

America
is not on a map 
since they’re burning 
more crosses, books, and bridges.

This dream I wish I wished tonight. 
Black. Pitch. Nothingness.
The prequel to hell.
A jostle of hyperbole emits a distinct smell. 
A mimicry of murmurs alert.
Monstrosities, god’s gift to the world. 
An exodus of echoes encased in concrete. 
Born to stand tall so others may dance.
Why don’t you smile? Can’t you have fun?
Isolation isn’t healthy but you shouldn’t be here. 
We can smell the combat that lives in your fear.

there’s a tickle in my throat won’t go away
drank all the water and electrolytes too
coughed and coughed
tried to swallow the tickle

there’s a tickle in my throat won’t go away
drank all the holy book and unholy ones too
choked and choked
tried to scratch out the tickle

cried and cried
tried to wash out the tickle

the tickle
is trying
to tell me

This poem is about working.
You know the kind.

The white page.
The flow state.
Revising, revising.
The waking and the walking
(so much walking)

until something finally catches
and that collision of sounds

coalesce

sing

soar.

There is nothing like it. 

This poem is actually about writing.
It’s a poem about survival.
About feast and famine.

One year I was so far gone I hardly
wrote at all. When I finally did,
molasses sludged from my pen tip
instead of ink.

And yes, it’s dramatic, and no,
the world doesn’t actually need me
to put my particular words out there in it,
but I swear to God, it almost killed me.

So now I write to stay alive.

This poem is about staying alive.

No. This is about living.

June, leaving so soon?
But didn’t we jazz real cool
slinking past no trespassing
signs for a lark in the lake—
two fools half gone on mistakes
better left to yesterday, drifting
across a blazing blue afternoon,
toes so many feet above the ground,
dancing mid-womb, June
you can’t say I didn’t love you,
didn’t adore you more than
a summer’s day