Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonThe West’s Fix: An Explication
This is a difficult poem. It needs to be. How else could it give voice to our complex world? The poem delivers experience. The reader must work to get at the poem. Begin with what you recognize and follow the trail. Pay attention to the clash of words: Myhtic and...
The West’s Fix: Poem
Mythic peppermint odd affinities, Cain's envy, the shepherd's crook, and the shape of ‘J’, the candy of salvation. Salvador. Provisional solutions, continuous calamity. Dali. Crutches prop a postlapsarian world....
Today
For some today feels like the day after yesterday, for others today feels like the day before tomorrow. The past weighs heavily for some. The future is weightless for others. Ignoring the past leads to an ignorant future. i
Wrong to Right
When right things are too difficult, we make wrong things seem right.
Six Ways of Knowing Rain
While I was sitting in my garden chair rain began falling in my neighborhood. A meteorological event. The elemental compound water, formula H2O, two atoms of hydrogen to each atom of oxygen was dropping from the cloud dark sky. A chemical occurrence. Or to put it...
On Not Writing Your Name in My Book
I lost my old address book: streets, names, numbers, yours among them, my beloved well-wrung friend. When phoning you I did a zigzag digit dance across the dial pad, your number retrieved from both mental and muscle memory, a finger poked pattern, stored as factual...
My City Is Under Attack
My city is under attack. There are no enemies in sight to be seen. Chimneys are still stacked, brick on brick. Roofs are intact. All the walls are upright. Lawns are mowed and weeds are pulled. Newspapers are retrieved from driveways each morning and mail from the...
After Death
After death, you won’t know what it’s like to be dead. You can only know while consciously alive and then by imagining. Do you remember a late summer day 27,362 years before you were born? Being dead is like that.
Fostering Kittens
After 10 kittens in the last 12 months, now you, number 11 another whiskered wanderer, a black white furry guest, little monk with no need to possess, little monk with no need to confess. Playful innocence with a skinny tail. We teach you house manners: the litter...