Friday, October 3, 2025

Poem: October

October

And leaves fly through the air
like geese
or chatter down the street 
like school children in a lunch line

And I long to run
to breathe the mountain air

And let it rustle my hair
like Grandpa used to

“And you know,” he’d say, 
“I used to have hair like yours.”

And Dad and the uncles
would be cutting wood
while Grandpa

And I drank Scotch.
“Brian, where the hell
are you?” I’d hear Dad say.
“Just here,” I answer.
“That’s a hell of a place to be,”
he’d say.
“I know,” I answer.

And I want the first
snowfall
to touch me

And I forget my coat

And at night the stars
are ice on fire

And I walk out into them.

“And where did you go?”
my wife asks.
I touch my cold feet 
to her warm legs in reply.
“Dressed like that?” she says.

And like this
it’s a hell of a place to be,

But it’s here.


About This Poem
This is quite an old poem from sometime in the late eighties. I always love the fall and October when it's sunny and crisp. This poem holds so many of those memories, and even new ones seem encapsulated here. The picture is from last October in Brattleboro, Vermont of a quintessentially New England scene: a covered bridge. That it's in October in Vermont where the trees turn to their beautiful resplendent colors is fully appropriate for this poem.


 

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Poem: A Pantoum of Leaves

A Pantoum of Leaves

You look at the trees and the leaves don’t seem
To want to fall, yet you look at the lawn
And the raking is endless like a dream
Or maybe more a nightmare with no dawn

Ever at all, yet you look at the lawn
And the leaves seem to never blow away
But maybe it’s a nightmare with no dawn
Or did the wind just blow them all away?

But the leaves seem never to blow away
And I have to rake them or there’ll be bugs—
So, did the wind just blow them all away?
I swear, I haven’t taken any drugs.

But I have to rake them or there’ll be bugs
Or maybe it’s a nightmare with no dawn
‘Cause the raking is endless like a dream.
You look at the trees and the leaves don’t seem…

November 2022

About This Poem:
It's that time of year when the leaves start falling, so I chose this poem that is about the endless chore of raking leaves before the storms of winter come. I chose the repetitiveness of a pantoum because that's how leaf raking seems: repetitive and somewhat monotonous after a time. That being said, I love the fall and raking leaves. The photo is one of fallen leaves in the University of Idaho Arboretum.

 

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Poem: Where Does One Draw the Line?


Where Does One Draw the Line?

Where does one draw the line
Between obscenity and the right to read?
Let us convene a committee
To decide.
Should public tax dollars fund
Obscene books in a school library?
Absolutely not.
What is obscene?
This passage in a book
Where a man fucks a cow.
Is that what the entire book is about?
I don’t know, I didn’t read it all.
Let’s have the committee decide.
The committee is corrupt
If they think anything about 
A man fucking a cow is
Anything but obscene.
But you said you didn’t know
If that book was about 
Fucking cows.
Anything that talks about
Fucking cows is obscene.
Then you have corrupted this meeting
Because you brought up the obscenity
Of fucking cows.
Let the fucking committee decide.
The fucking committee has no right
To determine whether or not fucking cows
Is obscene.
So are you suggesting eating hamburgers
Is obscene?
Fucking McDonalds is obscene.
I really like hamburgers.
You are fucking obscene.
Well, fuck you.
Go read a book.
Let the committee decide.
Fucking obscene.

May 2023

About This Poem:

I wrote this poem shortly after attending a school board meeting about a list of books that some community members (none parents of students in our district) objected to and wanted removed from the shelves. I found the entire request absurd, but I listened patiently and then suggested that no book be excluded from the library without being reviewed by a committee after having read the entire book. One guy said that was absurd because he could tell that the entire book was obscene based on this one passage he had read. I hadn't read the book (I found his claims of the cow scene the way he described it as hard to believe, but perhaps...No other context was given), but the conversation inspired this poem. The photo is the high school library where the meeting occurred. That room has inspired several poems in me...
 

Monday, September 8, 2025

Poem: Who You Really Just Are


Who You Really Just Are

These little ditties here we see
Of radiant times and those dull
To me. I write them here to be
A boon to get me through glooms full.

I know their context or did when
I wrote them so all do make sense,
And some I love, and some I planned
While others are complete nonsense.

That’s how our days go—yes, they do—
Some seemingly so sensible
While others just seem like they go
To realms of nothing memorable.

Hold to those days you can’t quite feel 
Because, perhaps, your mind was numb
Or you couldn’t get beneath peals
Of nothingness, your mouth was dumb.

They make the person wholly you
With laughter, joy, tears, and some fears
All rolled into a fount that’s new,
Nothing one needs but to be near

The thing that you may not e’en know
But that which makes you who you are
Not who you wish to be, but oh!
The one who you really just are.

February 2024

About This Poem:
Poems about being yourself have been resonating with me lately. This is another one of those in rhyme and iambic tetrameter (roughly). The picture is me and my family at a Mariner's game over 20 years ago. My boys are both adults now...

 

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Poem: Respect for the River



Respect for the River

While the river looks rough
From the hills up above
When you are in it stuff 
Seems to give way to love

Of the rush and roaring,
The rapids engulf you
In the whiteness rushing
Throwing the boat into

Disarray, perhaps turning
It over and your life
Jacket keeps you floating
Amidst the turmoil’s strife.

Yes, it’s that rush, the fear
You might drown in the waves
But your hope in life here
In your body makes you brave.

And I love the water,
I love it so, but know
When seeing daughters 
And sons drown, it deserves

Respect for its steady flow 
That rushes until I can
Only feel this majestic
Beautiful wave caress me.

May 2023

 About This Poem:

The Salmon River is just a part of me and I love it. This poem is about that and my knowledge that people constantly die in it because they don't fully respect it, often out of a lack of understanding. It's a dangerous river because of its depth, its current, and its deceivingly calm spots. People who aren't familiar with that don't get it and people who are familiar with it sometimes, at their peril, test it.

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

249. American Activism

American Activism

I have had over a year to think about another thing that I love about America and it hit me that I really like how American people don’t just put up with things they disagree with. Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his taxes (no withholding from paychecks in the 19th century) and spent a night in jail because he objected to being complicit in paying for the Mexican American was with which he disagreed. Rosa Parks just got sick and tired of sitting in the back of the bus while paying the same fare. Martin Luther King, Jr. led protests and was often thrown into prison for civil rights for Black Americans.

While Americans often avoid politics and stay pretty mute about it, seeming to be disengaged, they organize and join protests and rallies frequently when their elected officials don’t listen to them at all, claiming mandates merely by being elected. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s is a great example, but I think we’re living in another turbulent era when Americans are again speaking out in ways other than voting.

Some of my friends and I gather regularly to organize and write letters encouraging our elected representatives to listen to us. While that has some success, many of us have gone to protests, stood outside in the cold encouraging people to vote, or sign petitions to raise our concerns on the ballot for people to have their say with the vote. Like I said, our success varies but it feels good to be with others who demand that their voices are not ignored. This is something that I love about Americans: we are activists.


 

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Poem: Who Doesn't Know the Shame?


Who Doesn’t Know the Shame?

Who doesn’t know the shame
That others place upon your name
For being something they assume,
Heaping upon you all their gloom?

It may be ‘cause of your skin’s hue
Or because of your accents clue
Of where you come, lands they’d undone
In spite from a king’s sense of fun.

It’s un American to think
One’s better because of some rank
Made up by finances from poor
Who found thieves ransacking their door.

But we Americans seldom
Care that here we’re not a kingdom
For we have fallen for masters
Tearing us from our own lords.

Who doesn’t know that shame
Others have placed on your name
For being something they assume,
Heaping upon you their own gloom.

May 2023

About This Poem:

This is a poem about feeling misunderstood, something that has happened to all of us. I think two things can come of being misunderstood: 1) you resent others for not understanding you; 2) you begin to understand others feeling out of place because you have been there. This poem aims at that second feeling: empathy. The photo is just a selfie gone bad, but I kept it and now I know why. :)