a room with a view

chatting amid your plants
the sun setting on your wall
sipping coffee, an hour of
bliss, joy, serenity, basking
in the glow of you

april 24, 2026

dichotomies highlight
complexities existing
in our hearts, souls, and minds
warped by news and
fake news or just 
plain old propaganda

chanting never again
never again!
never again!!

to no! not again!
not again, no,
no not again...

we gotta do something!
we must do something!
it has to stop
can somebody do something?
say those who can't
do very much

grandchild of a genocide
of a genocide survivor
pulled every which way
by what we see
happening now
by what we see and
can do nothing about

reminds us
how they, yeah them, 
our tshnamis 
emptied us from our lands
and then dismantled
anything, everything
anything that mighta
shown we were there
we were once there 
on what were our lands 
our "we lived there
forever lands"

they destroyed 
our churches or
made 'em mosques
or worse barns 
now carpeted 
in işı budur
    but we still
    got the photos of...

    holy mother of god
    they just fucking did it again
    no! not again!

now others, once victims
are 'perpetrating' 
emptying others
new victims 
from their lands
their "we lived there
forever lands"

these perpetrators 
doing it better, 
more efficiently
emptying the lands
blowing up everything
all of their everythings

blowing up their homes 
with them still in them
they have to leave
there is nothing
no reason to stay
people gone 
evidence rubbled
    in one vile
    massive 
    genocidal
    war crime...

so what if, it, 
this crime 
every heinous act
documented and
social mediaed 
real time and 
we all feel lost,
horrible, emptied
sad, devastated
    many of us
    give a shit
    and no one
    no country
    no person
    that could make
    any difference does
    a fucking thing

war by remote control
the ultimate, efficient,
obscene, and vile,
violent abstraction 

drafted while listening to the 
laments at the TAYF concert 

a sketch of an etude

overwhelmed by
that unbearable
lightness of being

not trying to
rip off kundera
but he said it so
amazingly well

but the concept
oh yes, the concept
so very real
these days
probably real
all the days
of mankind

buoyed and 
anchored
simultaneously
by the precious
pursuit of, you know,
trying to fathom
life and love and 
death and disease
kindness and inhumanity
none of which 
ever
    go
        away

none of which
will we
    ever
        understand 

april 14, 2026 

 

 

 

unholy warfare

speechless
empty
gut punched
broken heart 
crushed spirit  

a village rubbled
a father digging
weeping and digging
in his ruined home
for his children
he already knows
are dead

april 9, 2026

 

afar

i
in love with the idea
of loving you
adoring the notion
of adoring you
yearning just to
yearn for you 
even dreamt about
dreaming about you
while missing the longing
of missing you

ii
thinking these thoughts
while conjuring and 
scratching out these lines
from afar

from afar
some distant corner
of my fallow mind

from afar
but rooted in some
genetically coded 
sameness
from afar
probably
too far
 

different boots, different throats

Israel Passes Law to Hang Palestinians Convicted of Deadly Attacks
Experts say the law was written in such a way as to ensure that it was 
unlikely to ever apply to Jewish extremists who commit similar crimes.
~ New York Times, March 30, 2026

the powerless 
have the power
the subjugated
now subjugating
the once pacific
armed to the teeth
those disenfranchised
now disenfranchising

once viewed as vile
less than human 
viewing others
just as vile and heathen
casting them as animals
those that were gassed
about to hang 'em high

a village for a tooth
cities for an eye
a hospital for a house

the powerless 
with the power
have become
what they
hated

existential etude

finding my voice
using it well to mine
a wave of poems
loded in the bedrock
below the basement
of my soul

the voice 
getting hoarse
i feel it waning
the vein is baning out
the well, just sludge
the river, wadifying
the metaphors
coming up lame

bereft and wandering
in a world gone mad
lonely in a loving fold
joy coming only
from the stars
in the desert
night sky of
my mind's eye