Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonThe Long Second
This is the story of a long second, not a minute, too long, or an hour, too much plot, too many characters, too much dialogue, between and within. What can happen in a second, you wonder. Not much. But if you pause going forward, if linger and wait, n o t i c e, you...
Hope
Hope is spiritual antigravity.
Neighbors
My neighbors live behind a fence, inside a front door, beneath a roof. I hear children playing. A dog barks. In the morning the father rolls backward toward work, and the mother toward responsibilities. Someday, after a great storm, perhaps we will meet.
The Meticulous Fascist
Fascists fear differences. They dream of homogeny as they go xeroxing their way into a monochromatic future. A taco on a menu, they think of reinforced borders, dim sum, they do not think of Chinese cuisine. They think of aliens arriving from the Orient. Diversity...
To Be an Old Man
Since I was a small boy, I was aware that I would become an old man. One of my keenly felt memories is sitting with my grandfather and two of his old friends on a porch stoop in the dark. The Camp Washington section of Cincinnati, Ohio where he lived was succumbing to...
Missing a Dead Friend
There is something I want to say, and someone specifically I want to say it to. You. Of the 7.9 billion current sets of ears, none of them will do. None of them are you. The words to speak are here. Your ears to hear are not. Unpicked fruit hanging from a tree....
Fascist*
Railroad trains are fascist. Locomotives have no steering wheel. The train’s direction is determined by the one who laid the track, from despot to depot. No swerving. Nonconformity forbidden. The wheels constricted to roll straight, no deviation from the stated norm....
Days & Seasons
We are snow, women and men, made of water fallen from high through weak sun and cold sky. Vegetation forms facial features, sticks for arms, ice for bones, dense carbon forms an eye. The earth turns and tilts, turns and tilts. The turn gives us a day. The tilt carries...
Watching Cards Being Played
I know little about cards or their games, how to shuffle a deck in preparation for play, preventing prearrangements, aka cheating. The cards in a muddled mess, just like life. The game won or lost fairly, just like life. I once called a 4 of clubs a 4 of clovers....