Sweeping cereal dust over weathered wooden floors He knew this push-broom life was not his. Brave soldiers and dashing lovers, charming spies and magnetic saviors, Giant heroes On a screen – These were his people. And (in darker moments) his friends, His Sirens, beckoning from a distant place, Where corn was found in polished supermarket aisles,...
Republicans and Democrats alike must serve their benefactors Two-party system makes branding differences easy to market How far we stray from humanistic ideals when money corrupts all
The challenge for a poet at the ball game is a triplicate predicament. He must not swoon over the greenness of the grass. He must not view every little lovely detail as a metaphor waiting to be transcribed for posterity. He must not recite rambling stories with no discernible point except to subtly imply it...
These fine fellows with their wattles and their medals Their jiggling jowls and joyless eyes Broadcasting breaking news from the feeding trough Where these fine fellows congregate and cogitate These alphamen oozing oleaginous charm Any cute ambitious telegenic girl with a healthy appetite for achievement Could hardly resist How unpleasant and unkind and unthinkable really For...
There once lived a man from Secaucus (the part of New Jersey that’s raucous) His house was a dump Befitting a chump Intending to insult and mock us His dream was to live in a tower Symbolic of great phallic power A spire so tall The masses would crawl And grovel and moan and cower...
How maddening to our friend the mollusk subjected every day to that most callous of clichés haunting a bi-valve’s life. Happy as… Each time the bitter oath was uttered, our friend the mollusk shrunk inward, as if he could escape the narrative of fate. If they only knew, he thought. No one should...
Your righteous race to accumulate Good Karma Requires making love And opposing hate This noble social justice quest cannot carve out exceptions To the covenant Between your values and yourself You cannot advocate for the homeless While cheerleading for the Wall Street Banks that put people out of homes You cannot advocate for Peace While...
Garden paradox: no February blossoms without climate change.
Why is this day unlike all the others? Wingless romantics pierce hearts, like Cupid, Who’d make love all year, if he had his druthers. Why is this day unlike all the others? We pair like doves, no need for another’s. Together we’re giddy, deliciously stupid. Why is this day unlike all the others? Wingless romantics,...
I learned today Several important things about the world Let’s count that as an epic win While we weep If ignorance is bliss, then knowing must be something else entirely That was not one of the things I learned today I learned today The Pope from Argentina The one with the nice smile This...
His Chinese title was Mang-tze: Mang the Master. Just as European scholars changed his philosophical predecessor K’ung-fu-tze into “Confucius,” Latin-trained historians of the West called him “Mencius.”
He spent most of his adult life (378-289 B.C.) counseling princes and kings, teaching them to rule like philosophers instead of barbarians. In his final years, he composed — or provided the inspiration for the composition of — one of the most widely read and beloved books of classical Chinese…
Writer, poet, artist, improviser, lyricist, former television personality, and generally decent person.
The award-winning documentary Knock Down the House by director Rachel Lears, covers four working-class, “regular” women — a registered nurse, a bartender, a coal miner’s daughter — running for Congress during the 2018 mid-term elections, including the sensationally charismatic, eloquent and inspiring Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who, most of us now know, shocked the world by defeating an entrenched...
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