I.
Suppurating wounds sprout
Like wildflowers. We persist—
Purposefully ignorant, inured,
Anesthetized, self-aggrandized.
We, founders of wastelands—
Never heeding a lesson, ever
Unappreciative, and masters
Of all we destroy. We fester.
II.
Think.
Feel.
Love.
Change.
Act.
What I’m Reading:
“If I act and work and write as though a more just future will exist, perhaps I’ll be one step closer to believing in it.”
— Nicole Chung / “When You Can’t Find the Words”
Derecho green sky—
White Nationalists in town,
No one wants them here,
No one called them to Boston
To goose step the Freedom Trail.
To the children of the Klan,
Stay home with your shields
And tend to your own gardens.
What I’m Reading:
“We are fighting furiously for women’s rights and the planet, and we mean business.”
— Anne Lamott / “The Prayer We Need Isn’t at the 50-Yard Line,” The Washington Post
I don’t want to be
The person who creates more
Rancor in the world.
I don’t want to be
The person who is always
Right and needs to win.
I don’t want to be
A force for inequity—
A wellspring of hate.
I don’t want to be
The loudest, the least humble.
I’ll choose something else.
What I’m Reading:
“Dear poet, when will you stop performing an autopsy / with poems on all the broken things you know, / especially including yourself?”
— Abdulkareem Abdulkareem / “Self-portrait with phonemic analysis”
What I’m Reading:
“Geoengineering: The realistic assumption that it’d be easier to cast trillions of tiny mirrors into the atmosphere than to get people to stop driving SUVs.”
— Zach Weinersmith / Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
i googled white nationalism—
flashes of congealed bacon
you play the tragic heroine
toothy femme fatale
dont judge my painting
until i finish my ropa vieja
dont cut your hair
before tinting it blue
i fix you a tongue on rye
my marbles gather dust
we wait for slide guitar solos
on an unmoored pontoon bridge
in darkness your voice
has the timbre of rime
the choice you say—love
love
is love
What I’m Reading:
“If you punch the universe, it punches right back.”
— Zach Weinersmith / Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
“A cow with a mouth at both ends
chews hell going and coming.”
— Ai / “Guadalajara Cemetery”
“Organic Chemistry: A means by which to make undergraduates cry using only carbon bonds.”
— Zach Weinersmith / Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
“I recommend sitting down anywhere, looking around, and then staring into the middle distance for a while.”
— Dana Margolin / The Creative Independent interview
“I have studied what we have done to the planet and I object. I object to the exploitation of, and the lack of respect for, human laborers. I object to the frantic commercialization of the many realms of daily life, I object to the desecration of what is beautiful, to the celebration of what is venal, and to the ethical obtuseness of the king’s adoring enablers. I object to society’s complacency … I would ask you not to give in to the temptation to despair, not to retreat into cynicism or settle into disaffection…”
— Barry Lopez / Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World
“I loved Leonard Cohen more like a daughter loves a father, though. His music tempered my insanity with a brighter kind of madness. He grounded my heart at a time when I was worried I would jump out the window.”
— Ottessa Moshfegh / “A Brighter Kind of Madness: On Leonard Cohen”
“Every time we check, God appears to be playing dice.”
— Zach Weinersmith / Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
“… And what of the stanzas
we never sing, the third that mentions ‘no refuge
could save the hireling and the slave’? Perhaps,
the truth is, every song of this country
has an unsung third stanza, something brutal
snaking underneath us as we blindly sing
the high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands
hoping our team wins.”
— Ada Limón / “A New National Anthem”
What I’m Listening To:
“I would like to salute
The ashes of American flags
And all the fallen leaves
Filling up shopping bags”
— Wilco / “Ashes of American Flags”
What I’m Listening To:
“Eating the world through the eyes of a fish
I like salt, I like salt
Coagulants, fritters, tubes, patties and links
Ich bin enchilada, bye”
— Brnda / “Year of the Hot Dog by Burger Gang”
Have you ever felt like a fatherless waif
In the presence of your father?
Have you ever felt like a cornered cat
As your mother hovers
Over you in the blood-moon light?
I dream of Saturn eating his children
I dream of the children I never wanted
I dream of the children I never had
I dream of what I’m capable of doing
I dream of what was done to me
I dream of your equanimity
What I’m Listening To:
“You can keep the furniture
A bump on the head …
… Where’d you park the car?
Clothes are on the lawn with the furniture …
… Cut the kids in half
Cut the kids in half”
— Radiohead / “Morning Bell”
What I’m Reading:
“Today, approximately 21 million women around the world obtain unsafe, illegal abortions each year, and complications from these unsafe procedures account for approximately 13% of all maternal deaths, nearly 50,000 annually.”
— American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists / “Facts are Important: Abortion is Healthcare”
What I’m Reading:
“Credit where due: the Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling in West Virginia v. E.P.A. is the culmination of a five-decade effort to make sure that the federal government won’t threaten the business status quo. . . But beyond that it’s hard to see exactly what the point of demanding federal climate action is now; why march on the Capitol or the White House if the Supreme Court won’t let elected leaders act even if they want to?”
— Bill McKibben / “Daily Comment,” The New Yorker
thee istsfor manity reader 