Jeff McCallum

I wonder sometimes, no, most of the time, about how we interact with and treat each other.  How Anna N. Smith or some other irrelevant soul gets more press then a soldier who commits suicide while waiting to be admitted to a VA Hospital, athletes are suspended from playing for a year for steroid use while drunk drivers do a weekend in jail at the most. As a middle aged male I often confront my own lust, my own wonder and my own joy in the strength and beauty of the female mind and spirit, although, as the link to Kathlyn Stone’s article on the recent United for Peace and Justice march demonstrates, not everyone feels this way.

You’re a Poet

“You’re a poet”

he said

grabbing me by the throat

“let’s see you write”

slapping me hard

“about this”

again

“and this”

casually throwing me into the wall

I know what happened next

after I woke up

and went back to work

Sometimes the world is not beautiful

Sometimes

I forget the world is not a beautiful place

Three lovely young ladies I see after my Sunday school class

tell me they’re depressed

people call them gook

and worse

I had no idea

I thought they only hated niggers here

or maybe spics

but no

it’s as it always was

People fall in love

in all the picture books they forget which who is what

in some picture perfect

moment

and even if no one else alive

cares

about the issues

I do

and wonder

when every issue’s brown

what tribal sign will separate Romeo from Juliet

We will not all be Smith of Incantations

and certainly never Claire Barton

King Kennedy Gandhi

Hero Today Gone Tomorrow

So

Live for the Now

and Damn the Torpedoes

Full Speed Ahead

I love more than life itself