Posted in Deep Thoughts, Princess MeMeMe, poems on May 23, 2008 | 6 Comments »
I caught a glimpse of myself
in a coffee shop window today.
I was surprised– I looked good.
Pale face, dark glasses, wry expression.
I was looking less damaged on the outside
than I think I am inside.
It was that glimpse, unexpected, that undid me.
What could I do if this was
always the self-caught glimpse?
The window reflects the clearest,
lightest parts of [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, lawyer on May 6, 2008 | 18 Comments »
I had a client once who was being evicted from public housing. He’d had a rough hand dealt to him— mentally retarded, emotionally impaired, with paranoia, anxiety, depression, probably borderline personality. He was a mess, and his parents—get this—MOVED AWAY one day while he was at work at a local retailer like K-Mart, rounding up [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, good things, links, poems on April 8, 2008 | 10 Comments »
I was shuffling through a stack of paper the other day and found a copy of the poem “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann– the very one I’d printed onto heavy bond paper in fancy script italics, and pinned to the heavily decorated corkboard on the outside of my dorm room door in college. I don’t know [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, government, lawyer, links, politics on April 7, 2008 | 12 Comments »
There’s an interesting article in the NYT about former prisoners and the operation of what used to be termed “halfway houses.” Underlying the entire article is the assumption that we want our former prisoners to do well– to succeed upon release, to integrate back into the community– and that this is why these places [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, government, links, politics on April 3, 2008 | 12 Comments »
Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. You can find a partial archive of his speeches and video and audio clips, here and here. Link to The King Center, here.
For the transcript and audio of Robert F. Kennedy’s speech in Indianapolis about Dr. King’s death, click here.
For Nelson Mandela’s Acceptance Speech [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts on April 2, 2008 | 8 Comments »
So yeah, I have sort of felt like Jack Handey or a dime store philosopher lately, or at least like one of the kids from South Park (”You know, I think we’ve learned something today, guys…”), but anyway, I’m in a somewhat musing mood these days. This morning’s no different. I’m looking out the window of the conference [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, good things, memory on March 28, 2008 | 16 Comments »
I was riding home from work, listening to my mp3 player, not paying much attention to what was going on around me. I was tired– it has been a long, boring day, and I had just started back to work again, feeling the oppression of not being able to take a nap in the middle [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, books, good things, poems on March 21, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Why worry about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love,
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, good things, links, memory, mom on March 20, 2008 | 15 Comments »
Today is Maundy Thursday, the day on which Jesus’ Last Supper falls. I am still struggling with my literal faith versus my belief in the metaphors, my support of the scripture if not the institutions, but one of the best parts of Easter, for me, is what happens before the Last Supper. As [...]
Posted in Deep Thoughts, memory, meta, poems, politics on March 14, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Four uniformed transit police,
one on a cell phone,
talking to payroll.
Strung out in a thick blue line, looking tough
hands shoved in jacket front pockets,
ready by their holsters .
They’re there to protect–
the kids from themselves,
and us from the kids–
the ones with nothing better to do
than to stab and shoot and beat
using weapons whose cost could have gone [...]
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