Dec 30
Learning at the Feet of Self-Taught Idiots “Son, life can be good if you just let it treat you right.” My son reacted to this bit of news with a skeptical eyebrow arched across his fore like the world’s most dubious caterpillar. Maybe the last few months have been horrible. This monkey pile …
Dec 29
PRAYER I saw a man Kneeling & praying On the corner of Purgatory Street & Salvation Ave wearing An American flag like A shawl to protect him From evil I saw a man in Utah pouring out Hate to a crowd of young Students pretending To be a good Christian Man Interrupted I’ve seen wars …
Dec 27
A public fountain to wash my Christmas stockings, same socks as last year. Public Square lit with so many bulbs. Where is the money for food? So many Christmas trees, so many lights. Will Christ remember His poor? What green zen can warm my burdened soul? What sweet smoke can fill my belly? 6000 stars …
Dec 26
Bad Clowns in a Blue Van I’m late for work and caught behind a blue van on a quiet one-lane road driving at the speed that skin wrinkles, slowing to a near-stop at each curve. I imagine the driver, born back when William Taft got stuck in a bathtub, a fossil crawling his way to …
Dec 25
Home It was a rainy night In San Francisco I’d just moved from LA Was still finding my way In a new life I was tired Returning from work There in the winter’s dark A few blocks from home It began coming down hard And I needed to turn left At a four-way stop Like …
Dec 24
Abraham Lincoln Did Not Say That Sorry, Bob. Lo siento, Bobby. You can fool most of the people most of the time because everything is bigger on Facebook. There’s a sucker born every minute. I think Orson Welles said that. No. P.T. Barnum. No. Joe Pachinko, who liked to quote W.C. Fields and play “Ruby …
Dec 23
Michele McDannold, Collected Poems 2005-2025, 2025 Roadside Press. Distributed by Magical Jeep available on Amazon, 294 pages $20- As I began reading this substantial volume of hard-hitting, direct to your bloodstream poems, I could almost hear that country and western dude who used to yell, “Are you ready for some football?!” in the background. After …
Dec 22
A Series of Replays: Pella Felton reviews Apostasies by Holli Carrell Carrell, Holli (2025) Apostasies (Poetry Collection). Perugia Press. Apostasies reads like a history lesson wrapped in a memory play. Salt Lake City native Holli Carrell’s ambitious collection presents a thorough, personal study of structural gender violence in the Mormon church. Carrell alternates between a dialogic interrogation of …
Dec 21
The Antisocial Libertine Flickering lights, pounding beat, drums and bass, I feel it in my seat, my groin, driving me, lifting me, even as it pins me down. I cannot stay away, drawn to the perfume, the makeup, the liquor, to the place where time doesn’t matter, where tomorrow is theoretical, possibilities endless. Mint-masked cigarette …
Dec 20
Slightly Beyond Immediacy Let there be Slightly beyond my immediacy The intimacy Of a distant train Maritime horns of ships leaving port The dull skyward roar of hourly airline shuttles Let there be in my Indulgences of sanctuary The still continuing urgency for connection The highway hum of Ever turning radial wheels of Dharma, dampened …
