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War
Freud, 1938, Vienna
Vienna, 1938, Freud, eighty-two. / Nazis and their allies parade in the streets, / flag after flag and those raised arms, / ceaseless enthusiasm and hatred of the Jews.
June 2014Selected Poems
— from “I Stand in the Doorway” | Sometimes when you say goodbye you know it’s goodbye for keeps. / You touch your lips to her cheek, or you squeeze his hand & walk off. / What else can you do?
October 2013excerpted from
The Cat Inside
I question the underlying assumption that one does a cat a favor by killing him . . . oh, sorry . . . I mean “putting him to sleep.” Turn to backward countries that don’t have Humane Societies for a simple alternative. In Tangier stray cats fend for themselves.
September 2013Walter Lee Is Home From Vietnam
We all lurched forward when Mama braked and the car crunched to a sudden stop midway up our gravel drive. Following her gaze, we stared next door at the crisp green lawn of the Lee family. A wooden sign with red and blue letters hung across their side porch. It read, Welcome Home Walter, with small white stars across the bottom.
June 2013
Sunbeams
January 2013The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
Leah’s Daughter
The workshop was just about to get started when somebody noticed / that Leah looked glum & distracted & asked what was wrong, / & Leah told us her daughter had called from Iraq that morning, / hysterical, screaming & weeping.
January 2013The War Prayer
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken.
January 2013
Indefensible
David Krieger On The Continuing Threat Of Nuclear Weapons
The path to security can only be through total nuclear disarmament. We cannot indefinitely maintain a world of nuclear haves and have-nots, and we cannot go attacking every country that we think might be on the path to making a bomb.
January 2013
The Water Carrier
Guru Gobind Singh’s small fort in Anandpur Sahib was besieged by the mighty forces of Emperor Aurangzeb. The emperor, who believed Islam was the only valid, true, and right religion, was forcibly converting Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians. Guru Gobind Singh, however, believed that all humans worshiped in their own unique ways and that all religions, if practiced with love and heart, led to God.
December 2012Sunbeams
November 2012My mother and I could always look out the same window without ever seeing the same thing.
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