Dear L

I have come to know you through your many stories,

and as I close my eyes, I envision your experiences

as prophecy, blood soaked rice paddies, washed away

by monsoon rain. Then war comes again. And fresh blood

runs through crimson streams anew. I have respected you

from the outset, yet at times I think you’ve taken mysticism

too far. However, I have only become world-wary abstractly,

and can count the number of dead bodies

I’ve seen in the flesh on one hand, unlike you. Some people

are possessed with an unhealthy obsession of death,

and in the process forget about life. You’ve taught me

that the two are intertwined, and even though you’ve witnessed the unspeakable,

you still somehow find the lost grain of hope in any dire situation.

I want to thank you for your sable hand of guidance,

always grasping an ebony cane crafted in the cradle of humanity, Africa,

the continent whose descendants you have taught me more about than anyone else.

I am grateful.

“Walk in Beauty” and endure.

-your loving friend,


Numbers in the Air (first draft)




Arnold- It’s your imagination.

Patrick- Everything is imagined Arnie-








Arnold- No, I mean beyond the streets.










Patrick gives Arnold a knowing smirk. 



Arnold- Watch out for the fiends.

End of first scene.

Locating Dislocation

There is a problem with contemporary poetry, a problem that intrinsically stems from the issue of bewilderment. Poets and humans in general, don’t just feel lost, but disconnected from the world by being fractured in time and space. I understand and can relate to the idea of bewilderment, or the status that is prevalent in contemporary, (some would say post-modern) poetry, of being in relation to awareness of the Other. This quest is a vicious cycle. Searching for what cannot be found through words or even reality leads to confusion and the debasement of poetry itself. I believe that poetry needs a mast, one which will inherently guide the boat of the mind by the winds of emotion and thought. This is in contrast to the trend of scattered bursts of a faulty mechanical propeller. Poetry can be natural without having to be confined to the constraints of nature.

Poetry is inherently personal. This is even if the poem is detached, even if the voice is third-person omnipresent. The problem of being everywhere and every-when at once is one that Fanny Howe analyzes in her poetic and philosophical essay entitled Bewilderment. In introducing her poetics to the reader, Howe begins to explain how the characters in her fiction make her feel, as beings completely apart from her own construct and mind. Howe relates this concept to her poetry as well, and claims that the relation correlates in that she has to confront the same problem in expressing her thoughts on reality through the words she writes on the page. “I would have to say that something like the wave and the particle theories troubled the poetics of my pages: how can two people be in two places simultaneously and is there any relationship between imagination and character?” Howe reconciles this problem for herself by ending her essay with an oxymoron exclaiming that art is supposed to prove that life is worth living by expressing that it isn’t. Fanny Howe’s quest ends in a full, bloody circle.

However, poetry doesn’t have to be cyclical in order for it to stretch the limitations of conventional thought. Writing is an interpretation of life. And even though life in the 21st century is fragmentary and deterritorialized by the digitalization of even the most mundane aspects of life, (think checking your smartphone for the weather before going outside instead of looking at an analog thermometer, or even physically going outdoors to feel the temperature) the poet mustn’t succumb to the current poetic trend of expressing their perception of the world through detached mechanical incoherence. Yes, using technology may seem more accurate, and reporting on different perspectives of characters is difficult when not being able to convey multiple existences simultaneously, but attempting to express the ontologically inexpressible too often results in contradiction, and ultimately nihilism. This is what Fanny Howe does in Bewilderment.

Gabrielle Calvocoressi approaches bewilderment differently in her poem, Late Twentieth Century in the Form of Litany. This poet confronts the fragmentation of expression in a seemingly cyclical sense, because of her repetition of “I thought I heard voices.” Calvocoressi even ends her poem with the line “Over and Over I thought I heard voices”, which could be construed as a form of admission to mechanical detachment. And yet there is a clear progression in this litany that leads the reader from thinking about the character’s possible auditory hallucinations to knowing the voice’s source when the poet breaks from repetition. “Mother took all the pills and I looked at the clock.” Through this line alone, Calvocoressi locates the source of bewilderment.

Poetry, History, and Prophecy



(This article originally appeared in The Gleaner.)







Precarious Everything

Feeling no wind

flames flicker

in palpable air




take risks again


painful longing for days

taken for granted


Will this moment in time

be romanticized?

Surely not.


abstract serenity until silence

is broken by the roar of jet engines.


Backyard Genocide

-over one hundred tadpoles in a broken pool.

-what will happen when they grow legs?

Will it be the ten plagues all over again?

This star is shrugging off rays of light now shining

on this roof, but only for a little while.


While my heart strings spread

each root will overtake me,

and all of these thoughts

will be for naught.