1 I’m tired of periods and Words that end sentences I’m tired of waking up to Days that end in oblivion I’m tired of writing sentences This sentence is out of order I am at a mountain lodge I am the timekeeper The workshop gets started The conference room is filling up with students Papers …
Estate sale
I We pass an estate sale And pull over. In the shade of a few maples 3, 4 and 5-dollar tables The books are 50 cents Spread out on a blanket. We don’t need anything: (We just don’t want to go home yet.) No furniture, vases, bookends Ornate hairpins Trivets, mirrors Lamps, mugs or plates. …
Non-Violent Meets Non-Lethal
Veteran Slimed By Rhinos In Portland
Herds of rhinoceroses rushing at top speed through the streets became a sight that no longer surprised anybody. People would stand aside to let them pass and then resume their stroll, or attend to their business, as if nothing had happened. – Eugene Ionesco, “Rhinoceros” Few can hold a candle to Vietnam veteran medic Mike …
Vertigo / Picking up glass on Monhegan Island
The back of Monhegan rises Over a hundred feet above the sea Like a bit of wild Ireland I am partway down A series of climbable ledges Picking up shards of glass Green and amber and clear splinters Of what’s left of beer bottles That were lobbed from the top of the cliff After the …
Continue reading “Vertigo / Picking up glass on Monhegan Island”
Trump launches attack on key programs for the elderly
Alert! Social Security and Medicare are in Critical Danger
(This article is part of a joint publication between ThisCantBeHappening.net and Tarbell.org) Watch out! Uncle Donald is coming for your and all your relatives’ Social Security and your Medicare! The all-out attack on Social Security and Medicare, those two remaining standing edifices of the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s …
Continue reading “Alert! Social Security and Medicare are in Critical Danger”
New poem on a terrible anniversary:
Headline
So the smiling little boy stared up with lots of no cynicism His eyes like newly hatched birdies in first sun His teeth unknowing of guile At the nice Caucasian lady bending over his All-American Japanese-ness A plump go-to-church lady angry enough To believe in Christ Billowy floral dress perfume sweat It’s-all-right arm around his …
Portland first time judges have tied protest ban to avoiding jail sentence:
Banned from Protesting in the Nation’s Capital for Five Years back in 1967
As I was reading reports that judges and magistrates in the Federal District Court in Portland, OR have been handing out sentences to protesters arrested by President Trump’s Homeland Security goons that included bans on future protest in Oregon, I suddenly had a sense of deja vu. Back in October 1967, when I was …
Continue reading “Banned from Protesting in the Nation’s Capital for Five Years back in 1967”
Unsung heroes of Los Alamos:
Rethinking Manhattan Project Spies and the Cold War, MAD — and the 75 years of no nuclear war — that their efforts gifted us
75 years ago before dawn on July 16, 1945, a cataclysmic explosion shook the New Mexico desert as scientists from the top-secret Manhattan Project tested their nightmarish creation: the first atom bomb, called “the Gadget.” This birth of the Nuclear Age, was quickly followed a few weeks later, first on August 6 by the …
My first sip of coffee is sweet
That’s a lie The first sip isn’t sweet But with the first sip Everything else just Smacks of sweet I’m just saying My first sip says Life is sweet The second sip says That was then Third sip Toughen up mister The last sip is Strong bitter cool And I get to thinking I remember …
Dedicated to thiscantbehappening collective
Our Beating Drums
Midst happy folk Midnight Congo-drumming whirling dancing Raw sugar rum swirling Stars sparkle together Sea surges as one Trees intertwine No colors divide All are one Revolutionary Cuba Che’s home of love Home of health for all Mississippi Freedom Summer Fight for Equal Rights All are one Yet in this planet divided Power is separation …