Tag: ethical consequence
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Getting the Algorithm
Getting the Algorithm emerged from a period of recursive grief and speculative clarity. I wanted to write a poem that refused sentimentality while still honoring the emotional residue of illness, authorship, and identity. The mathematical symbols are not metaphors—they are hinges. Each glyph carries consequence: ∫ as funeral, ∅ as death, ≠¬ as refusal. The…
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When the Boys Go Marching Away
When the Boys Go Marching Away began as a meditation on the quiet rituals of departure—how war, faith, and memory braid themselves into the domestic fabric. I wanted to write a poem that resists heroism and sentimentality, that instead lingers in the aftermath: the porches, the ribbons, the daughters named Hope.
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One Face Only
One Face Only began as a quiet refusal. I had just turned seventy and found myself staring into a mirror—not with nostalgia or regret, but with clarity. The poem resists the impulse to chase idealized versions of self. It’s about choosing one flawed reflection over a pile of broken possibilities. The cracked mirror became a…
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Leaving Vancouver
Leaving Vancouver emerged from a moment of sensory disorientation—salt, tar, and ocean air mingling with dread. I was struck by how travel, especially cruise travel, promises escape but often delivers confrontation. The poem explores the tension between ritual and unease, between what we hope to leave behind and what insists on following us. Russell’s suitcase…
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January Dream, 1987
January Dream, 1987 emerged from a dream visitation that blurred grief with peace. My mother, who had died decades earlier, returned in the dream not to ascend, but to sign love into my palm—wordless, tactile, and precise. The poem resists sentimentality and myth, honoring ambiguity and consequence. It’s an American sonnet that turns on ethical…
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A Proper Fold
A Proper Fold emerged from my ongoing exploration of ritual as both inheritance and resistance. I wanted to write a poem that honored the quiet violence of conformity—how grief, gender, and legacy get folded into gesture. The speaker is a 4-F child shaped by military precision and familial duty, yet excluded from the honors that…