poet, podcaster, radio host, troublemaker
My Job
I sit in a room alone
and play songs
for the people I assume
are listening to the radio.
Every 15 minutes or so
I talk into a microphone
to the people I assume
are listening to the radio.
You have to take a lot on faith
to do this job, otherwise
it can seem a little unhinged.
Then again, it takes faith
to talk with people
even when you can see them.
Maybe even more,
come to think of it.
/ / /
21 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 21 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentThe Inexorable March Of Human Progress
The first recorded use of ginseng
as a medicinal herb
was in 196 AD in the
Shen Nong Pharmacopoeia,
a Chinese text.
In the 1500s, China and Korea
fought over control
of ginseng fields;
both nations used it
to treat convalescing patients.
One thousand eight hundred and thirty years
after its introduction, ginseng is now
an ingredient in 16-ounce bottles of Arizona Green Tea,
although it appears several places down,
after high fructose corn syrup.
/ / /
20 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 20 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentMarvin The Paranoid Android
Is My Spiritual Advisor
I’m glad you’re here, they said.
I knew they didn’t mean
the Indian restaurant.
They meant here here.
Still breathing.
I smiled, probably a wan smile,
except I’m not sure what “wan” means.
Anyway I smiled because
what can you say to that?
“That makes one of us”
doesn’t really cut it.
(I looked up “wan” and it means
“suggestive of melancholy.”
Nailed it.)
I’m on a bunch of meds these days
but not the meds for my brain.
I’ve been taking them for 20 years
and honestly I’m not sure what the point is.
This is probably where that one
Krishnamurti quote should go.
Can anyone look around
at what we’ve made of all this
and react with anything other than
rage and horror?
Me either and I don’t see the point
in pretending.
We finished our lunch, paid,
then went to the bookstore
across the street,
where we each got a book.
/ / /
19 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 19 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentDisposal
A gentle fling!
with the plastic dustpan
and another mouse
lands in the bushes
that divide the neighbors’ yard
from ours.
One more victim
of the cat we talk to
like a baby,
who at night
becomes Mr. Hyde
to the rodents
on our street.
18 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 18 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentForeign Exchange Student
They didn’t know what to do with me,
so they gave me access to the AV room.
I’d sit there for a few hours every morning,
watching VHS tapes of concerts
by Dire Straits and Sting.
Some days I’d go with the class to lunch.
I was partial to the fried rice
with the red pickled ginger on top.
In the afternoons (if not earlier),
I’d ride my bike around town,
stopping into the shops
to have my little conversations.
Nobody cared about my grades.
They didn’t count for anything.
And as I was the first exchange student
in this northern industrial town,
most people were more curious
than anything else, as if a movie
were being filmed in town,
or a plane had crashed on the outskirts.
In the end I learned to speak Japanese
better than the students who ended up
in school together in the big city.
If I wanted to talk to anyone,
it had to be in Japanese.
These days I would choose silence.
/ / /
17 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 17 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentThe Sometimes Fox
There is magic in infrequency,
I thought as a fox walked
by the studio window this morning.
I sometimes see this fox
in the parking lot
of the radio station,
moving from one
set of bushes to another
in the pre-dawn dark,
disappearing
almost before
I register that it’s there.
Today, though,
the sun was up,
shining on its fur
as it emerged from the trees
only to slide,
seconds later,
behind the fence
around the satellite dish,
vanishing into the ether.
/ / /
16 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 16 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentA Poem Before The Reading
In a few minutes I have to go be ON.
I have to make a room full of strangers
feel welcome with me and with one another.
I have to make my little jokes and
take photos of all the poets.
You do those things
no matter how you’re feeling.
Sometimes you do them precisely
because of how you’re feeling.
In the darkest of hours,
we keep one another going.
/ / /
15 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 15 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentMetaphorically
I’m hanging on by a thread —
that one guy’s sword above your head.
Or was it hanging by a string?
I can’t remember everything.
In any case you get the gist.
You’re sitting there and I insist
on dangling up and looking down:
“Hey turn that grimace upside down!”
I think I’ve lost the metaphor.
It’s what Peter Jackson used WETA for.
I admit I’m showing off.
I hope it isn’t “wee-ta.” (cough)
/ / /
14 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 14 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentRight Effort
A woodpecker’s constant work
accompanies my reading of a Zen text.
It pounds away at the bark;
I whittle away at the self.
/ / /
13 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 13 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentBirdsongs
There’s a tufted titmouse
somewhere nearby
It really wants us all
to know it’s there
I get it — it’s not just titmice
who long to be seen
What is capitalism
but the ultimate veil
Preventing us from seeing
except in terms of worth
What are you worth to me
not for who you are
But for what you can give me
what I can extract
Like this one lonely bird
we must keep singing
Until our calls draw the neighbors
and we tear off the veils
To see the trees we’ve been missing
all this time
/ / /
12 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 12 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentChild Song
for Jessie Neal
I am the child of the pigeon and the gull
I am the offspring of the coo and the scream
I am the sand eroding on the beach
Being swept into the ocean at spring tide
I am the son and the daughter and the in-between
I am the laughter and the sadness in the night
I am the keeper of a thousand tales
Going untold or whispered to the wind
I am the morning when the rain has come
I am the final leaf spinning toward the ground
I am the signal breaking free of Earth
An envoy to what lies beyond
/ / /
11 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 11 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentSacrament
Starve us.
We burn down your warehouses.
Surveil us.
We smash your cameras.
Jail us.
We bend the bars and escape.
Beat us.
We hit back.
Belittle us.
We grow larger.
Deadname us.
We name ourselves.
Hunt us.
We evade detection.
Kill us.
We rise and rise.
/ / /
10 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 10 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentThe Best-Laid Schemes Etc.
As a kid I thought I had telekinetic powers
because I’d never heard of a breeze.
As a teen I was pretty sure that “famous musician”
was in my immediate future.
(In my 20s I still thought that,
despite all the bars I was playing in.)
By my 30s I had started causing trouble professionally,
and I figured that would lead to, maybe, Congress?
By my 40s I’d been homeless once
and I’d given up on electoral politics.
I’m two years into my 50s and I’ve been homeless twice.
I’ve mostly stopped making music.
My retirement plan is death.
I don’t have the first clue what else is coming.
/ / /
9 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 9 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentNavigating The Hellscape
The Red Sox are trying to win
their first series of the young season.
Israel is carpet-bombing southern Lebanon.
I had a smoked salmon sandwich for lunch
and chatted with a friend,
then sent another friend a note
hoping his family in Lebanon are okay.
What even is “okay”?
Roman Anthony is up to bat.
He’s gone 0 for 2 in this game.
Iran has withdrawn from negotiations with the U.S.
because of the bombing of Lebanon.
The cat is asleep on the bed behind me.
Six minutes ago, Mosab Abu Toha posted:
“Israel has just shot a Palestinian woman
in the head in Mawasi Rafah.”
The sun is shining.
/ / /
8 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 8 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentYou Can Play A Shoestring If You’re Sincere
for Kittie Cooper
Or a sewing machine, as it turns out.
You can stick two contact mics on a Singer
and go to town, letting the feedback wail
as the crunchy needle sounds distort
through one of the many barefoot pedals.
One light bulb shines
through the holes in the paper
as it travels, threadless, through the machine.
The audience marvels like believers
watching a miracle.
If only Isaac were here
to see what he had (unintentionally) wrought.
/ / /
7 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
NOTE: The title of this poem is a quote from John Coltrane.
Day 7 of National Poetry Month.
One Comment