Right 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 CommentFievel Crane Posts
Birdsongs
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 CommentLament For What Could Have Been
Who is doing what they would be doing
if they didn’t have to do what they’re doing now
just to pay for food and shelter and medicine?
Would you be filling out spreadsheets or
ticking boxes on a form or
saying yes to some asshole when you mean no
if it wasn’t for the fact that most of us
are closer to homeless than to rich
and we have to keep the hamster wheel spinning?
I think there’s a better than even chance I’ll die
never having seen London or Paris or Nairobi or Cairo
and that’s true for nearly everyone
who isn’t from one of those cities and if they are
they just have a different city on their bucket list
that they’ll most like never get to unless
it’s during the week of vacation they’ve stored up
to pretend that life is something other
than what the powerful require.
We were born to be the gardeners of Eden,
we grew up to be serfs
in the mines of Airstrip One.
/ / /
6 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 6 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentThe Little Things
for Stephanie
It’s the late-night chats
(that aren’t all that late).
It’s you crafting
while I read comics.
It’s you reading cozy fantasy
while I listen to an album.
It’s sitting on the porch,
waving at the dogs.
It’s road trips and train trips
to see the people we love.
It’s dinner with the friends we met
standing for something bigger than us.
It’s obsessing over the cat
as he lulls us closer and bites us.
It’s narrating your life to me
while I narrate my life to you.
It’s your hand on my back
as I fall asleep at night.
It’s the way we make it work
despite all the things against us.
/ / /
5 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 5 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentPorch Of Babel
The magic bird app
counts two dozen kinds of birds
outside our apartment
on this early Saturday morning.
I used to know
quite a few of their songs,
but like any language
it fades if you don’t use it.
Now it’s just chaos
and woodpeckers.
And mourning doves.
Sadness is universally recognizable.
And blue jays,
because so is being obnoxious.
/ / /
4 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 4 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentThe Ballad Of Artemis 2
four little humans
in their little tin can
gonna circle the moon
“one giant step for man”
that’s what Neil said
but not what he meant
he did the best he could
while he was hell-bent
on that little piece of heaven
or as close as he could come
at least until each of us
can stick out our thumb
and an alien will take us
on a trip to Barnard’s Star
you can’t see it from here
but it’s not all that far
for now though we wait
just a few days more
for those four tiny humans
in their tin can to soar
around the moon’s back side
you know what I mean
and go the all-time furthest
of any human bean
/ / /
3 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 3 of National Poetry Month
Leave a CommentAll Things Being Equal
Keeping it 100,
I’d like to get the fuck out of here.
Keeping it real,
“here” means Charlottesville and life.
Keeping it another buck,
there are times
when I spend two hours
on the lawn with friends
and it all seems a little more bearable.
The sun is almost down.
The cat is on Stephanie’s lap.
A jay is doing jay things
in the neighbors’ tree.
All things being equal,
I guess tomorrow can come.
/ / /
2 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 2 of National Poetry Month 2026
Leave a CommentModern Love
David Bowie looks better in his mug shot
than most of us do when we go out on the town.
Then again, he doesn’t believe in modern love
so maybe that helps. Or helped. Of course.
It puts my trust in God and man, he said.
I don’t particularly believe in either of those
but if it had to stake it all on one or the other
I’d give homo sapiens a better chance
of fixing the cracks in the wall, the holes in the dam,
of pushing back the darkness we’ve created.
Not a particularly good chance,
just a better one than God.
The song has changed on the radio.
Time has come today.
Nobody’s coming to help us.
And Dave has left the building.
/ / /
1 April 2026
Charlottesville VA
Day 1 of National Poetry Month 2026
Leave a CommentWaiting For You
Birds flee the rush of the train.
They leap skyward
from the roof of the record store,
circle the parking lot
once, twice, three times,
but the train’s still going,
hundreds of cars of who knows what
heading for who knows where.
A pedestrian in a thin black leather jacket
looks apprehensively at the sky,
headphones on, oblivious to the train.
The birds, tired of waiting,
move farther off
in a swirl
of black wings, forked tails.
After what feels like too long,
a bell signals the raising of the guard rails
on either side of the tracks.
The street is moving again.
The train recedes like a distant storm.
/ / /
21 February 2026
Charlottesvile VA
Pictures Of The Gone World
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
Artists lived in them, photographers, composers.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
Rent controlled, so people could still afford them.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
Bill Cunningham lived there, the eye of fashion.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
They turned them into offices, row and rows of cubes.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
The tenants asked for help, but none was forthcoming.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
Now the telemarketers call above the theater below.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
There used to be apartments at Carnegie Hall.
/ / /
12 February 2026
Charlottesville VA