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Tag: poem
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Something from a few years back, getting out of my own tiny head … — When she thought about it, she realized she was a reaction to and reflection of her mom, in separate and unequal ways, that she was in many ways a series of responses to where she came from and how. And…
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I. The truth, it’s said, is that boxers Don’t know when to quit. That they refuse to leave the ring until they are hollow shells Of themselves, shuffling ghosts Chasing ghosts chasing them— Except there’s a deeper truth, that you and I are boxers, too, called from our short stool by a bell: That we…
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It’s good to be home after a pretty scary week. On Friday, I had my second cardiac catheterization in the past 7 months, and I’m now the owner of two additional stents (that’s three total if you’re counting at home). The surgeon framed it not as a further deterioration but as a hopeful resolution to…
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A poem about the fragility of my attention. Brains have bones. That’s dumb, right? Except—how else to explain the form of my thoughts, the broken-ness of my attention? It explains a lot, how goddamn lost I get in this head, to learn that I broke the bones in my brain. The bones in my brain…
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A poem I wrote after our scary Wednesday in Haiti. The boy lies limp in the dust Of the road. An argument engulfs him. The boy’s Papa screams, “Who did this? What have you done to my boy?” But no one helps the boy. Ayiti lies on the road under a midday sun, Blood from her…
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Kids can be lifeboats for parent’s aspirations. Careful, they can tip.
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It starts with a call. The frogmen in their frogmen suits. One lifts his head from the water to say, “Got something.” You birth him, raise him, praise him, berate him. You place inside him your hope and dreams, And then, one day you awake to find he’s not in his bed after a night…
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I want to be a little old man. Concentrated, reduced, Like a sauce my wife cooks up on the kitchen stove. Many things go in, heat is applied, and what is left is less And more. There was a time in life when I was many things— Expansive and full of multitudes. I’m less than…
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Note: I have a pregnant friend who is overdue and, unless something happened over the weekend, will go to the hospital on Monday to induce childbirth. I was running today and tried to remember the excitement and emotions of waiting to meet the person who has been veiled for these 40 nervous weeks. I wrote this. It’s…
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Editor’s note: Something I started writing when I awoke very early one morning in Haiti’s Central Plateau, trapped between my mosquito net and my racing thoughts. 17 Pilgrims Seventeen pilgrims on the road from Port-au-Prince to the Central Plateau. Haiti is life lived on the road, in full view. It is a hot, dusty iceberg.…
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We were asked during a church group (don’t think I’m giving anything away here) whether we viewed time as a friend or enemy. Jotted this down, and liked it: Neither. Time’s a vessel ——> Used well, it can hold my life & give it form; squandered, it constricts me. It’s a tension, like trying to…
kevdonahue 