Landing Page
now browsing by category
The landing pages are to be used as topic-introduction sections of the site, which debrief the reader on the particular category of posts.
Poems by Others
Herein poems written by others, all deemed by the authorities worthy of reflection and sharing.
Poetry
- A Dog Has Died – Pablo Neruda
- A Moment of Silence – Emmanuel Ortiz
- A Quiet Life – Baron Wormser
- A Reminder – found and slightly edited from the webpage of a Methodist Church
- A Wreath to the Fish – Nancy Willard
- Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps – Andrea Gibson
- Against the Odds – David Lerner
- Aimless Love – Billy Collins
- All’ve It – Matt Moberg
- Alone – Jack Gilbert
- Another Planet – Dunya Mikhail
- Be Kind, Rewind – Neil Silberblatt
- Big Conversation – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
- Black Momma Math – Kimberly Jae
- Boplicity or Jimmy Throws a Houseparty for Huey Newton – Daniel B. Summerhill
- Capitol Air – Allen Ginsburg
- Combat Primer – Charles Bukowski
- Crow – Doug Anderson
- Crow Blacker Than Ever – Ted Hughes
- Dear white people – Makhadzi Mudzweda
- Detour – Ruth Feldman
- Dismiss Whatever Insults Your Own Soul – Walt Whitman
- Do You Know What Today Is? – Danez Smith
- Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads – Martha Rivera-Garrido
- Failing and Flying – Jack Gilbert
- Feel Mo – Michael Korson
- Footprints In Your Heart – Eleanor Roosvelt
- For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet – Joy Harjo
- Forgetfulness – Billy Collins
- Gate A-4 – Naomi Shihab Nye
- Georgics: Book I excerpt – Virgil
- God – Brian Doyle
- God Says Yes To Me – Kaylin Haught
- Growing Old – Emma Rosenberg
- Half-light – Dāshaun Washington
- Homesick: A Plea for Our Planet – Andrea Gibson
- How Poetry Comes to Me – Ruah Bull
- How She Heard It – Todd Davis
- How to Slay a Dragon – Rebecca Dupas
- I Talked to a Lady – Tanya Howden
- I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free -Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas
- If You Knew – Ellen Bass
- Instructions before visiting Earth – James McCrae
- It Happens All the Time – Hafez
- KINDNESS – Naomi Shihab Nye
- Love at First Sight – Wisława Szymborska
- Love is Not All – Edna St. Vincent Millay
- Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front – Wendell Berry
- Men – Maya Angelou
- Millennium Blessing – Stephen Levine
- my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
- My Country – Tony Hoagland
- Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges – Sam Sax
- Old Man Eating Alone – Billy Collins
- Our Real Work – Wendell Berry
- Pilgrim at Tinker Creek excerpt – Annie Dillard
- Poetry – Pablo Neruda
- Prayer – Marie Howe
- Primer For Blacks – Gwendolyn Brooks
- Psalm for the Slightly Tilted – Ilya Kaminsky
- Record Player – Adrian Matejka
- Relax – Ellen Bass
- Shoveling Snow With Buddha – Billy Collins
- Sing and Pilot – Svitlana Povaliaieva
- Sleeping in the Forest – Mary Oliver
- Small Stack of Books – Blake Nelson
- Soliloquy of the Solipsist – Sylvia Plath
- Spider – Andrea Gibson
- spring – Safia Elhillo
- Squirrel – Lynn Ungar
- Tangled Up In Blue – Bob Dylan
- Telephone Booth (number 905 1/2) – Pedro Pietri
- The Best Poem Ever – Brian Doyle
- The Caveman’s Lament – Brian Bilston
- The Four Noble Truths – Jake Onami Agnew
- The Future – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
- The History of One Tough Motherfucker – Charles Bukowski
- The Holy Longing – J.W. von Goethe
- The Layers – Stanley Kunitz
- The Long Boat – Stanley Kunitz
- The Lost Hotels of Paris – Jack Gilbert
- The Moon is Full Tonight – Billy Collins
- The Shyness – Sharon Olds
- The Silence of the Stars – David Wagoner
- The U.N. Headquarters in the High Commissioner’s House in Jerusalem – Yehuda Amichai
- The War Works Hard – Dunya Mikhail
- The World is Both Burning and Blooming – Karen Salmansohn
- To Diego with Love – Frida Kalko
- Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
- Two poems – Yehuda Amichai
- Two-bloods – Rolando Kattan
- Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
- War Primer – Bertholt Brecht
- We are the Trees – J Raymond
- We will meet, don’t be in such a rush – Hala alShrouf
- Wendell Berry – Enriching the Earth
- Wendell Berry – The Loved Ones
- Wendell Berry – Two Poems
- What I Learned From Listening to a Stutterer – Ellen Zorin
- What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why – Edna St. Vincent Millay
Short Trips
Venturing forth upon voyages and various viewings.
SHORT TRIPS
Women
Celebrating the power, beauty, wisdom, leadership of all women, and of “womanly” aspects. Okay, okay, maybe some regretable brutality too.
WOMEN
Mythologies – BHARTI KHER
Indigenous Matters
I work at honoring and protecting indigenous cultures worldwide, particularly in North America, a.k.a. Turtle Island,` and particularly in Massachusetts, named for the Massachusett People, one of the indigenous nations that occupied the current state that bears its name. As the child of immigrants and invaders now living on the unceded land of the Nauset Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation on Cape Cod, I wish to walk the talk and not just talk the talk of reparations, restoration of rights, and preservation of culture, knowledge, and belief.
Adventures & Attendences
This photo was taken on New Years Day, 2012, the year I began this website, at the Remtuck Temple outside of Gangtuk, in the Himalayas, in Sikkim. One of the locked doors at the Temple had a sign written in English, which seemed very odd to me. it read, “No Entry without Purpose.” I’ve tried to follow that guidance wherever I go, and whenever I enter.
The black and white picture was taken in 1964 in the Moslem Bosnian village of Lijesnica. The men are all part of a Catholic village work crew that was in Lijesnica on this day when they spilled the blood of the goat they slaughtered on the roof rafters of the house they were building before joining the peak and celebrating with a toast and the young anthropologist. Zhivali!!
“… it is not through the great skill of the hunter that success is achieved, but through the hunter’s awareness of her/his place in Creation and relationship to all things.” Indigenous American (Crow) wisdom
About this website:
This site was begun in 2010, designed with the intention of helping a half century of written work escape the bounds of its voluntary imprisonment … and, inasmuch as i had been actively traveling three or four month a year for the past few years in SE Asia, India, Africa, and the South China Sea, to also serve as a vehicle for recording and sharing my thoughts and observations as i travelled ’round the planet.
There are three main categories of writings on this site – poetry, travel writings, and other writings (commune stories, memoirs, non-travel stories, and select journal entries). I thrill to the fact there is so much fabulous writing and art being generated these days – in books, magazines, journals, on the web, and elsewhere – TV shows, student created works, plays, fascinating blogs, sculpture, and just plain old good visual and verbal art and intimate essential conversations. I almost resisted adding to the onslaught by not posting these materials, but the jailer was old, looking at death on the horizon, and tired of enforcing the restrictive rules. Besides, the prisoners were deemed by the highest authorities to be as rehabilitated and presentable as they ever would be, at least those that made it out into the blogosphere, mostly all harmless I trust, and restless for a taste of liberty and fresh air. This is also a legacy for my descendants and relatives all. If you want to be more directly in touch with me please go to or visit my FB page.
ADVENTURES & ATTENDENCES
Political
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” Plato
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
John Lewis – Freedom Fighter, February 21, 1940–July 17, 2020
Journal Entries
I have kept a personal journal since my thirtieth birthday. Often it reads, regardless of my chronological age when penning it, like a repetitive and embarrassing adolescent reverie about relationships and experiences that, even if I don’t ultimately burn it, I’m surely not publishing. Distinct from that journal, I’ve also penned a number of true autobiographically stories that I’ve included here as well as some entries I imagine my journal might have contained had it been written before I was age ten.
