Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonBeing Accomplished
Feeling barely felt. Thinking barely thought. Saying barely said. Doing barely done. My day is filled with partial accomplishments. Being remains, the only success. . In distilled moments I am grateful,...
Waiting, Not Thinking
My daughters assume I am thinking, when in the early morning they see me sitting in my garden chair doing nothing. I don’t blame them for thinking I am thinking. That’s what it looks like. If someone is awake doing nothing, they must be thinking. But appearances can...
Shakespeare Finale
Will Shakespeare ever be dead? And if so, how will it happen? When the last actor is bored with ancient Rome’s politics? When the last page of the Tempest is incinerated in a forest of fire? Or when the last reader of Hamlet is too weak to dust ash from his eyes?...
Finding The Book of Disquietude
I do not believe in miracles, not in interventions where some divinity suspends the laws of nature temporarily satisfy my want or need. Nor do I believe in fate? I do not believe some future-making mechanism is determining my life. Life is a complexity of...
Ride the Clean Storm Home
“You could timidly explore the coasts of Africa to the south, but going west there was nothing except fear, the unknown, not ‘our sea’ but the Sea of Mystery, Mare Ignotum.” Carlos Fuentes,The...
The 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...