Traditions

I met a couple on the train to Albuquerque.

He was mercurial; she had a bruise just beneath her eye. I kept thinking of stories about old women on their deathbeds, confessing to having killed their husbands, simply because there’d been no other way.

Rust

The train cuts through the land where I once ran wild as a kid. I wasn’t expecting it to hit so hard, the sight of those empty hills, the dry gullies, the stubborn brush. I was heading to Raton, a town I’d never seen but recognized… worn, rebuilding itself, still standing.

While the Lights Are Still On

Let’s demand more for ourselves.

Kindred

In Los Angeles, I met a few kind souls, one who reminded me of someone long gone. An old friend who left too early. They keep surfacing in my thoughts. The more I turn that feeling over, the more the word ‘friend’ comes, and slips free of its meanings… just sound, just ache. This is for the friends who remain, and the ones I still meet in memory.

Her Butterfly Shadow

There’s a new regular at the coffee shop. She carries silence like a fragile glass. But the notebooks she brings blaze with color, pages that seem to laugh out loud.

On a quiet morning.

One quiet morning, a woman walked into the coffee shop with her son. In that instant, she carried the weight and power of strength itself.

Values

It’s a strange kind of theater when the elephant seizes the whip, and the keepers cry out that the circus is in danger.

The Punk Rock Philosopher

I’ve had a few brief exchanges with a barista at the coffee shop. Brilliant mind, sharp wit. She’s shared some of her struggles. Enough to glimpse the weight she carries.

This might be my new poetry blog...

You can find the old entries here.