Poems

This is no private country. no one’s exclusive club. America is res publica a republic, a public thing. America belongs to no one, not even a favored God, who historically has demonstrated a preference for divine right kings and sometimes queens, a monarch, all power...

inspired by Gianni Vattimo  Would the world be better off with weak religion? I don’t know. I’m just asking. I think so. Weak religion would not claim to know everything, to have all the answers, provide the single solution to multiple woes of humankind. Weak religion...

It’s tucked, there, behind the grey fold, under the coil of flesh, within the glistening tissue, in formation beside the spelling of the word r e m e m b e r. a valuable member of your mind, filed to be brought forward as needed. Now needed.  

A man is seriously ill.  He has been diagnosed with a life threatening disease.  His brother brings him to a physician who recommends a nearby hospital. The hospital is famous for outcomes of recovery and the restoration of health. The man’s brother delivers him to...

I learn from past centuries. And why not? They knew a lot. I am not bigoted, not against the dead, not against quickless bodies, nor quick-witted minds soaked with unfamiliar alphabets. The long gone teachers still teach; Ovid -  things are and are not what they seem,...

All these years I have lasted. ephemeral seconds fleeting minutes transitory hours temporary days short months brief years    From the beginning I was not meant to last. Yet, sun up and sundown, day in and day out, year after year, I lasted. Now in these last years, I...

In the past, telephones were mounted on walls, placed on desks, quickly to be found in the same place every time.  Wide spread webs of wires connected phones to each other. A telephone was attached.  You knew where it was. When you heard ringing, you went to the...

This poem will bore you. Or better yet, undo you, disassemble your world. There is a familiar word in this poem. You think it is comforting word. But after pondering this word, you realize it is seismic. I will give you a clue: a three letter word in the ninth stanza,...

The Mountain of Paul Cezanne The best Cezanne could do to make his mountain was to slash shards of paint into canvass using brushes made of stiff hog hairs. With surfaces bearing shape and color Cezanne bared the thickness of density.