Afghani Girls

Robin Gibb - Massachusetts

Sunday poetry

Because These Failures Are My Job

This morning I failed to notice the pearl-gray moment
just before sunrise when everything lightens;
failed also to find bird songs under the grinding of garbage trucks,
and later, walking through woods, to stop thinking, thinking,
for even five consecutive steps. Then there was the failure to name
the exact shade of blue overhead, not sapphire, not azure, not delft,
to savor the soft squelch of pine needles underfoot.
Later I found the fork raised halfway to my mouth
while I was still chewing the last untasted bite,
and so it went, until finally, wading into sleep's thick undertow,
I felt myself drift from dream to dream,
forever failing to comprehend where I am falling from or to:
this blurred life with only moments caught
in attention's loose sieve --
tiny pearls fished out of oblivion's sea,
laid out here as offering or apology or thank you

~ Alison Luterman

Can't be cooler than Cash

Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue! (Live at San Quentin)

Sunday poetry

A Blessing


Sure, there may be no
angels guiding us towards light,
nor higher power


arranging scholarships,
nor parking spaces
that suddenly materialize


in front of the Olympus Theatre,
where your new play,
Sink or Swim,

is triumphing.


But then again
there is my neighbor, Mrs. Susan North, 
with her aluminum walker


and oxygen mask,
who takes her dog out twice a day 
and wears a plastic baggie


over her left hand
to pick up shit
so all the other living people 


won't have to step in it.


~ Tony Hoagland

The Roots

Artwork by Alexander Knapman, an eighth grade student at Holt Junior High School in Holt, Michigan.