Poetry
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A Year of Violent Living
The following poetic memoir is part of an upcoming chapbook titled “Walking Backward over Broken Glass.” In 1968, I was nineteen, living in Da Bronx. It was the year of cities burning. New York. Baltimore. Boston. Chicago. Detroit. Kansas City.… Continue reading
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Our Silence Is the Enemy
Anyone with a brain could see that the Great Deportation plans of the Madman would eventually unfairly target some people. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the MAGA followers. This scheme is simple: keep this nation as European as… Continue reading
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Creating Dangerously
Being honest with my own memories. This week, I finished the last of four Zoom workshops sponsored by the Bronx Council on the Arts on memoir writing. It was a heartfelt and supportive experience, with people from around New York,… Continue reading
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The Art of the Bronx
My world at fifteen was a mix of innocence and naiveté, threatened at times by what seemed like the start of a world gone mad. It was 1964, and I was living in the John Adams Houses in the South… Continue reading
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I Am All of Them
diaspora(n.) 1825 in reference to Moravian protestants; 1869 in reference to the dispersion of the Jews; from Greek diaspora “dispersion,” from diaspeirein “to scatter about, disperse,” from dia “about, across” (see dia-) + speirein “to scatter” (see sparse). – etymoline.com… Continue reading
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The Freedom in My Mind
“It is the policy of the United States to: (a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech…” — Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship. White House Executive Order. Donald J. Trump. January 20,… Continue reading
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The Flag
One in a series of narratives on being American The red, white, and blue flag waved on high as it celebrated freedom and loyalty, even as the founding enslavers who promised everyone freedom, But it was really meant only for… Continue reading
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Something Happened
A long read inspired by Jill Talbot‘s “Emergent.” Something happened to me at the Catholic seminary—seventy miles northwest of the Bronx in Middletown, New York. I changed forever. Life before the seminary was not idyllic, but it was simple. 1948-1962.… Continue reading
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daydreaming
daydreamingI remember a faint foggy memory—south bronxrican and dominican rootsthe patterson projectsjohn adams housesa child into a teenagerdates days places people their names have faded awaylike the clouds i would stare at through my fifth-floor windowi was that kind of… Continue reading
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The True Criminals
I want to feel safe from them. The criminals Who steal from us Who take our children from us Who rape us Who shoot us Who murder us.Them. I want to feel safe from them. The criminals That take bribes… Continue reading
