Jose Padua: On These Passing Hours of Butterflies and Dangerous Living
In my darker hours I like to imagine a knitting club
where no one is allowed to smile.
Jose Padua: In Proclamation to the Emperors of Agony
Seeing an audience in Central Park holding up their middle fingers in unison is one of my fondest memories—even though I wasn’t among those for whom the finger was intended.
Jose Padua: Silent Tongues in the House of the Rising Sun
what’s even more beautiful
is that tonight in my small sleepy town
I can look up to the sky and see
a deep blue silence surrounding
a half, nearly see-through moon
Jose Padua: Head Over Heels
At the doctor’s office in Charlottesville, Virginia
to investigate the possible reasons
for my ten-month-old son’s large head,
the doctor measures my own
and informs me that my head size
is off the curve, off the charts
Jose Padua: Directions in Music and Other Ways of Approaching the Day
what he wants to do
sounds better than
what I want to do
we sit in the car
and listen
until the song is over
Jose Padua: Union Square
their crazy dad, his singular
song, with the only people putting money
in his cup looking as crazy as he did
Jose Padua: To the Ruling Class and All the Fearful Acolytes of Its Pale Supremacy
the sweetly subtle strength of a great
and rarely spoken language
Jose Padua: Stray Cats and the Prospect of Evenings Illuminated by the Full Moon
I wonder about things that may one day rise slowly
from beneath dry, brown grass; the beautiful sights
made visible by the drifting off of clouds, and the
slow telling of tall tales under the hunter’s full moon.
David Adès: Tomorrow
the day ticks inexorably by with its seepage of light, and I note the stirring in the air
as neither warning nor blessing
Jose Padua: Ten Sonnets for Electric Motherfuckers
What thou lovest well remains electric like the ocean’s
breaking waves; what you break turns dialectic like
a brick thrown through the window of an oligarch’s
flagship store.
Jose Padua: On Driving up Stonewall Jackson Highway with the Intention of Declaring Sovereignty Over the Surrounding Territories
I drive with the windows
rolled down
and the stereo
turned up loud
to Ella Fitzgerald
singing “Blue Skies”
as I look up
Jose Padua: And I Walked Through the Market and Stared at the Harbor Lights Through the Soft Rain
And sometimes the best way
to express belief of any kind
is to laugh
Jose Padua: Reflections on a Lesson that Would Soon Be Made More Clear to Me by Gil Scott-Heron
In 1971 I’m
thirteen years old
watching a big
Vietnam war protest
on television
Michelle Bitting: Walls
Worst I had to deal with, well, I suppose that time my son was shut in a padded room and shit himself at the special needs school. He was 13 and having one helluva wiring crisis. I got called to come get him after he graffitied his feces across white walls.
