poem

American Dream

Nobody cares

Nobody’s coming

The laugh is fake

And the offer obligatory

Don't make yourself at home

The chair is for someone else

It wont stop raining 

You’re out of money

You can't afford it

So lie to your kids

Set your alarm

Snooze button twice

Doom scroll and coffee

Shave on the shitter

Long deadening commute

Same old songs

Job you hate

But pays the bills

Take out a loan

Covet your neighbor

Dishonor your father

Bet on the game

Never read

Get dumber and dumber

Clicks and likes 

Curated existences

Broken promises

Barely suppressed rage

Lock the doors at night

Drink until numb

Wake up nervy

Start all over again

You’re out of gas

Fill it up again

Even hopelessness

Is a welcome distraction

It wasn't always like this

Four score and six quid ago

We used to believe 

That surely something

Was going to come to fruition

As long as we all never

Stopped believing 

Something better 

Had to come.

But it wobbled

Like a sad poem

Limping home from

A brutal ambush

And then died 

Ever since then, it’s—

Grab what you can

Everyone’s false

No one to trust

You’re on your own

Placate the strong

Exploit the weak

Pay the toll

Money is speech 

Alpha male 

Trad wife

Bomb Iran 

Be mean

Body shame

Buy a gun

Kids in cages

Less lethal devices 

Personal responsibility

Sculpted jawline

Brazilian butt lift

Avocado toast

Taxation’s theft

Access denied

High deductible plans

Securitized risks

Crippling debts 

Preexisting conditions

Country club memberships

Private security gates 

Tip the porter

Seize the narrative

Buy the news. 

Kill the truth

6/16/26

poem

 Sushi Rock

We met for sushi

But you weren’t hungry

So we went around the corner

To a bar where you smiled

At everything that spilled

From my mind even during

That half second of hesitation

Before I reached across

The table to hold your hand

For the very first time.

We kissed in the lot 

Where we’d parked our cars

And just before goodbye

There was a look of uncertainty

On our faces like the toys

We would someday buy for our boy

Just before we put them away

For the very last time.

5/28/26

poem

 The Velvet Box

I collect all my wasted hours

In a special velvet lined box.

Sometimes I take them out

Like old love letters 

Just to feel the furred paper

Against my flesh

Whispering a spell that can 

Only be broken by not reading them 

Over and over again.

When I’m done I carefully fold them

Along the rutted creases and try

To jam them back in the box

But it gets harder every time.

One of these days I’ll run out of room

For any additional procrastinations. 

Last night it took everything I had 

To finally latch the lid shut.

5/28/26

poem

 Approx

Rounding down or rounding up?

What are the rules?

One the one hand it’s self-

Aggrandizing, getting phantom hits

And now there’s ghost runners on base.

On the other hand you’re corralling

Extra numbers in a box

Only to be erased.

Nobody wants to deal

With awkward situations.

I’m certainly not a whole number.

Nobody has ever remembered my name

Down to the last decimal point.

The more you know me 

The smaller I get.

Unfortunately, I’m not special.

I’m not irrational.

There is a final numeral that puts, 

At long last, the finishing touches

On my ultimate value.

And now I’m just realizing

It will only get rounded off.

5/17/26

poem

 Inside Us

There’s an anger inside us 
Seeking simply to be spoken.
A rage simmering under a heavy
Lid of learned repression
Now trapped in the silence of uncertain action
I would call it a peculiar kind of alienation
Only I’ve forgotten the object of our yearning
One day a strange man comes along speaking
Familiar words from the dead language 
In which we have become so fluent.
We sit and listen to his puzzling diatribe,
How the words have devolved to mere sounds
Purged of any grounded meaning
Like the way ancient coffins become empty again
Once the last bone turns to dust.
It’s a suicidal praxis that cuts the music
And everyone stops dancing.
Who turned all the light on?

We were just getting good

At this new way of expressing

Everything we were always meant to say.

5/17/26

poem

 I Would Do Anything for You 

She took things into her own hands

Regarding our little mouse problem

I should have acted earlier

But I didn’t mind the little critters—

Soft and furtive and so very polite 

Never making an appearance 

Except for late at night or early morning and 

Not that I’m advocating 

For human/mouse cohabitation

For me it was like bacteria on my toothbrush—

Gross, but I can’t really see it 

And I’m not going to buy a new one everyday

But then she brought up certain practicalities—

The image of mice chewing through important wires

Behind the walls. If this happens, I could see her point. 

So she ordered a set of glue traps

And positioned them strategically

In key locations throughout the house 

I should have been paying attention 

She didn’t know this was cruel

She saw the black algal goo

As a void into which the mice 

Would fall and never be seen again

One morning I heard a faint scratching 

Behind a fake log in the gas fireplace 

One of her traps had lured its prey

And the little guy lie there 

In a gelatinous bed of black,

Wide eyed and exhausted on his back.

Eventually it would have starved to death.

Sometimes the young males rip the fur

From their skin in their frenzied escapes.

I’ve read of horrified spouses finding traps

With isolated limbs torn from torsos.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I carried the little torture chamber outside,

Placed it level on the driveway 

And brought the head of a hammer swiftly 

Down on the skull of our unfortunate prisoner.

I looked away when I swung 

Like all good executioners must.

It wasn’t blood I wiped from my face

But the spattered black remains

Of an uneasiness

No one even bothers to name 

5/17/26

poem

 Time Machine 

When the time machine is invented

Everyone will want to have one

Some will live entirely in the past

While others keep bouncing further

And further into the future

I went back and forth for a while 

But none of it ever made any sense

Without the context of the present.

Now I stay right where I am,

Woven to the fabric of my own fate

So many men abuse this technology

They become the smoothest player 

Who ever existed or the ballsiest short

Stack who ever called a bet.

Every success story is now under suspicion 

Listen, I’m one of those people too.

I just decided to go in a different direction

This moment right here is a bridge 

To a future that dissolves the past.

Pay attention. Love itself is at stake 

I have this strange certainty that when I’m dead

You’ll be able to feel me in your actual body

Tickling your feet or jabbing my fingers in your ribs,

Sort of fake kneeing your ass from behind in the bathroom.

Instead of reckoning with that you’ll just take another Tylenol.

Well, here we are again

By now we’ve done this a thousand times

And I have a good feeling about tonight.

Long ago we agreed to finally get it all right.

I love you. Then, now, and tomorrow.

5/17/26

poem

 Power Outage

I hate to be the one to say it

But no one really cares 

Your power has gone out again.

Get a generator, jackass

But no, you’re missing the point—

The power shouldn’t be going out,

At least not so often,

Not every time it rains or thunders 

In this godforsaken society

Where the billionaires are plotting

To commandeer the warmth of the sun.

We should all be in the streets

Chanting, pitchforks and torches

Because we deserve a much better life

Given what they force us to pay

In taxes. What do we get for them anyway?

Where’s my high-speed train to Sausalito?

Why do you need a debit card first

Before you fix this open femur fracture?

I didn’t sign on to genocide

I don't care about the Ayatollahs,

Apache choppers, aircraft carriers or F-35’s.

Don't make my kids weigh 

The risks and benefits of Hamlet’s

Dilemmas, “useless” degrees

That don’t pay the bills

But should. Turn the lights on.

Turn all the lights on

Now.

5/17/26

poem

 Ads

I like commercials with a beautiful, perky actress and it’s just jump cuts of her in different brightly colored outfits. I like commercials where the dogs end up with fancy meals on white plates. Mélange. Haute cuisine. I like commercials that are loud and obnoxious like entitled toddlers ignored by bad parents. I like commercials with a genuine narrative arc where the climax is the appearance of a product they all start laughing at and the denouement is me writing down the 1-800 number on the back of an old magazine. I like commercials that are an easily solved puzzle. I focus on little things. Like which direction to twist the shower knob to get hot water. I like commercials that elicit feelings of 45 years ago. Cicadas and cigarette smoke. Driving home from Akron, the front windshield a snapshot of the universe while our spaceship's hyperdrive accelerates into the stars. I like commercials that have stopped trying. Embarrassed by their own product. But I’m a sucker. I want to help them. Don’t give up, I say. I’ll buy everything you need.

5/17/26

poem

 Moon Poem

The moon was once alive

With all the potential of any planet

Careening through the early solar system.

Seeds of rivers, mountains, flowers 

Sleeping in its roiling interiors 

Until the moment it collided with Earth

And everything needed was stolen.

Now it loyally follows us around 

Like a lobotomized pet

Spinning through space,

Patiently waiting for us 

To give back what we took.

Unbeknownst to most it drifts

A little further away from us—

An inch or two every year.

By the time we’re ready to share

The fruits of what we had taken

The moon will be so small,

Easily mistaken for just another star.

It will be like finally telling the one 

Who loves you, you love them 

But it’s just somebody who kind of looks

Like her and even she’s way over there

On the other side of the bar.

By then it will have been decades 

Since anyone mentioned it in a poem.

5/17/26