Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonThe Narcissistic Cannibal
The narcissistic cannibal, always ravenous, is a connoisseur of himself. He has acquired quite a taste for the junk food of his thoughts. His mouth waters as he pops open the Styrofoam box of bigotry. He can’t get enough. He has no feelings but indigestible fear....
Enough
A funny word: ‘enough’. Spelled funny. (wouldn’t ‘enuff’ do) There must be roots and reasons for the ‘gh’ preceded by ‘ou’. It sounds funny too, like fluff, ruff, or bluff. In a world of scarcity, there’s never enough. Where a few have too much, and many more have too...
Death & Dasein
This is a brief philosophical inquiry into the meaning of being human. In order to appreciate the meaning of our human life, we must contemplate the contribution death plays in our being fully alive. Living and dying appear together and are deeply entangled. We...
The Birdfeeder
I hung a birdfeeder in our backyard, filled it with seed, and waited. One day. Two days. Several days, I waited. Would avian diners arrive at my modest meal? A cardinal appeared, head darting nervously between pecks of seed. In the brief introduction to his book New...
How Poems Happen
Many poems are the result of deciphering silence. Some poems are the result of deciphering noise.
Why I Am a White Racist
Because I have a skin. Because my skin is a particular color. Because the color is called white. Because white is privileged by custom. Because the custom is enforced by law. Because the law is on my side. Because I must do very little to be judged right. Because I...
Votive Candles
I didn’t believe then. I don’t believe now. Not in the efficacy of votive candles lifting prayers to heaven on small waves of heat. But in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere on a hill high over Lyon, France, the praise of city traffic rumbling below, the Rhone...
The Trouble with Bodies
If we could lose the body, skip it out over the flow of eternity like a flung stone skimming a river, shrug it off like a chip on the shoulder, remove it like a sweater of hungry holes needing to be fed and fed. Without the body we would not need politics, we would...
The Monk
In an airport waiting for flight, surrounded by others also waiting for flight, none of us present in the vast glass and steel sprawl, all of us already on to elsewhere, I saw a young man who did not look the part, sitting stone settled and still in his suit and blue...