Clueless about west coast Whiteness, for sure. For my anxious mother, this meant I needed her singular brand of watchful encouragement to grow into a whole person, a whole woman—and to be taught some street smarts for life in suburban Palo Alto with its unfamiliar patterns and pitfalls.
I found out I had lived, before I was born,
in hard, sturdy, independent men, their own masters.
None of them knew what to say, so they just kept quiet.
In an Age of Dark Enlightenment?
Her text says the bombing is getting
closer. She dozes, there’s a blast, a rattle
of debris falling somewhere near. She says
every bomb makes an earthquake. Her heart
stops. She says the forces are getting closer.
Trump’s war on dissent can only be defeated by a left that challenges the values sustaining authoritarianism.
Do you know what you’re doing?
and she said yes
though deep in her virginity
she knew nothing
but what she wanted
Trump has dragged the United States into another unnecessary war because his “America First” agenda is failing at home. He is using big bombs like a little man.
Hunger ––
I can’t hear the word
without my mind swinging to Gaza.
One night a feast was held in the palace, and there came a man and prostrated himself before the prince, and all the feasters looked upon him; and they saw that one of his eyes was out and that the empty socket bled.
This report includes the $17.9 billion the U.S. government has approved for Israeli military operations in Gaza from 10/7/23 to 12/31/24.
At the 50th anniversary celebration of the end of the Vietnam War in Ho Chi Minh City, U.S. antiwar activists drew lessons for stopping the war on Gaza.
Lord of the light that reveals
how we have failed and failed again
the one requirement asked of us—
to love one another.
Let me compose a song for peace
Beyond your phony epics.
Now the mockingbird at the mulberry
and its mate on the fence pretend they’re crows
and their caws contend with the noise in my bones