#generations
you handed us a broken world
said “fix it”
and then complained when we were overwhelmed
called our generation lazy
when all our fighting
was met with indifference
saw our depression and coined it weakness
as if our developing minds weren't forced to isolate
for two. whole. years.
blamed the disconnect from humanity
on our addiction to social media
pretending you didn't design it
so say we’re stupid all you want
just remember:
you’re the ones who were supposed to teach us
May 18
May 18, 2026 at 10:17 AM UTC
We stroke the rough bark
of the two along the path
here and there a branch battered
by storms, a tendon torn
the colon shortened, the toes stiffer
and more crooked in the ground
a lifetime stored
in their body, every fiber
knows it and retains it
A few steps away
a gripper dumps heaps
of earth into the roadside pits
where their neighbours have been
cleared for young plantings
it is not a graveyard here
but the living world
of an avenue to the past
shifting in time once again
May 15
May 15, 2026 at 3:46 AM UTC
My grandmother never could say,
"I'm full."
So she filled cookie jars and pie tins and Bundt pans because
they were also
just a little bit hollow.
She emptied herself into children and bathtub wine and her rosary beads
and they were full.
May 5
May 5, 2026 at 12:17 PM UTC
Quickly repeated
and high-pitched chirps
came from a branch.
On it, there was a nest,
and in it, there were three
baby crows.
Toward them, came flying
the Raven.
He gave them their food,
and cawed to them
as if telling them what He
had seen.
"A dead person being honored,
a big crowd looking at a couple,
a small crowd around a table,
and another big crowd
singing and then looking at me.
That's what I've seen, and
I'll come back when I've seen more."
The little babies almost cried.
They couldn't yet express themselves,
but their chirps almost sounded
like weeping.
Their father cawed as a farewell,
and then, also sad,
the Raven flew.
May 4
May 4, 2026 at 2:35 PM UTC
i escape through a lush country,
green beyond belief in itself, where
the sweet root calls as birds in
summer heat and peace is an
underwhelming joy.
if i could give you a question to ask
of them and place it bullet like in the rich air,
a question unseeming,
redundant to an old man yet
appropriate to the young,
it would be a question heavy
with doubt, dignity, pregnant with faith,
insolent in a single word why.
&&
all that lives in this place knows
the same, under moon and sun and stars,
feels the blooming brush, breath
life and surrender.
night’s oldest tales told stiff.
will become myth wanting from us
what it passes to us,
as it shames us what people want.
what they never know but
feel, in the same way,
that birds know the bodies
and heartbeats, of the birds they follow,
is the soft wind wearing
shining mountains to sand
not immediately, but long and patiently,
is the chance of religion, life in stone
and the deepest ***********
invisible?
we struggle to see, and find
what is visible like sundown and sunrise,
hidden or cloudless,
and it burns and
it is beautiful as it burns.
how could we want more?
Mar 14
Mar 14, 2026 at 3:25 AM UTC
.
can't sleep (mind pacing) lift up in bed
i look to the window :
night ballooning
irrigation set dense in the air
a forestry of dreams and scents
they'd said
'move over and give us a fortune'
some fumbles and growth
provide furnish and much seed
teaming industry and repaid formalities
secrets knit under it all
they even do dark business at the border
and families did sprout houses
surround The Work
as the god fir trees were felled
the mystery recedes
and other jobs buckle
into the needs
of The Community
all this to be plundered
through generations
of small town innocents
hunting deer
haunting tones of church sermon
and sewing badges on the uniform
with coded handshakes
playing detective
and tales told
of the natives held at bay
all those who wander alone at dusk
(sins of the feathered nest)
night marooned infancy
malefic spirits in the theatre wings
prepare their practical jokes
fantasies to answer solitary prayer
riddles phantoms mockery perfume
and veils
with labor task
and labyrinth
true darkness holds sway
for those who wander
amongst the trees at night
beyond banishment
they may simply vanish
become spirits in company
join the pain of the land
leaving remain a corpse
to be cried over
and puzzled with
i puff back through my window
and retake my form in bed
inflate it with a sleepy breath
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 9:31 AM UTC
Am I living a life that is my own,
Or am I chasing down the dreams
Of the women who have come before?
Reviewing my life
I see my aunt’s photography
Lining the walls,
I read a great-great-grandmother’s poetry
And think, are they mine?
Or am I thee?
Am I carrying the legacies
of women old before me?
Incomplete —
If these lives were to talk now
What truths would be freed?
Are they revealed
In the discoveries I make,
In the sweets I bake
Or in the decisions I take?
What are their’s
And what is mine?
Are any of them my own?
Dec 26, 2025
Dec 26, 2025 at 4:17 PM UTC
In some forgotten quadrant of the wood,
The Monarch Oak holds solitary throne.
A green colossus over splintered kin,
A lush green tower amongst a barren cemetery.
He claims the bedrock's yield, the deep decree:
"This bounty is the tribute owed to Me."
He draws the final drop, the closing sun,
The very richness that his growth has outrun.
It was not always so—
Before his many rings,
Before his bark became cavernous.
He was a promise in a simple shell,
The acorn cradled where the good things dwell.
A sapling nursed by shared and easy light,
An unassuming heir to forest heights.
The sprout ascended to that vibrant hum;
The loam was deep, the canopy was wide—
A balanced contract where all things abide.
The birds sang loud, the ants kept busy trails,
And life drank deep from open, generous wells.
But the contract frayed beneath his stretch of years;
The quiet giving turned to grasping fears.
His tender branches scaled to claim the height,
He drank the luxury, he stole the light.
His skin grew hard, a fortress soon defined,
And in that strength, he left the world behind.
Then came the rings that marked a different age,
When other sprouts began to turn a page.
The budlings rose, ambitious, small, and new,
But found the promised bounty, untrue.
They felt the drought his massive shadow cast,
The wealth he claimed, too powerful to last.
They whispered low, a sapling chorus strained:
"The shade is deep, the summer sun is drained!
What keeps you grand while we can barely root?"
The King Oak spread a crown of bitter fruit,
And boomed his answer to the barren ground,
No echo of sharing could be found:
"Don't look at me
Blame the invasive species."
He reigns supreme, a monument of greed,
A lonely giant planted from a single seed.
He will not thin his shadow, bend his reach;
His conquest is the only law they teach.
The younger trees, too starved to rise or fight,
Are shadows clinging to the edge of light.
Dec 25, 2025
Dec 25, 2025 at 8:45 PM UTC
From all New Beginnings,
we were born to die.
And when in the fullness of our days,
Life-Force Moonshadows,
both good and bad,
speaking truth and lies,
some lawful and corrupt,
promoting equality and inequality
both moral and immoral,
preaching love and hate,
in lasting peace or war,
give birth to our chosen companions.
And as we rise up to find that better place,
in the brightness of our humanity,
we will embrace at each pivotal moment.
Then, when face to face with Father Time,
some dimly lit Moonshadows, still left behind,
will continue to linger awhile,
slowly wane into soft distinct whispers,
and with a last uttered sigh,
will forever declare,
another timeless generation.
HOW WILL WE DEFINE OUR GENERATION?
Nov 24, 2025
Nov 24, 2025 at 4:57 PM UTC
When Eliot told me he’d fixed profile pics here on HP - I was delighted.
You’re our website God Eliot. Quick, someone bring me live chicken to sacrifice!
*It was another morning that began in gray weathered despair,
with the sun’s hues and bright, proud face obscured.
Peter (my bf) reported this - I didn’t notice - I was washing my hair,
but the sun broke out later, like a supernova of newness.*
I’m seeing more of my cousins here in Paris. They marvel at me and have debates about why I care - while I’m sitting there - as if working towards a goal is an alien concept. This menagerie wants me to know that I don’t have to work, that I can still avoid the moral corruption of fabled Macbeth.
I’m not talking about a ‘laid-back aesthetic,’ these fair-Falstaffs, loll in complete indolence. None of them work or go to school - their parents pay for their lifestyles - although a couple went to college for the party connections.
Now, a lack of aspiration can be seen, by some social-climbers, as a sophisticated communication of status, indicating that someone’s not validated by the dominant, or bourgeoisie codes and rules. But that only applies if the money’s yours - not your patent’s. They are, as you might guess, delightful people whom I generally avoid - except the youngest ones.
Alphas are the first A.I. generation. Even the youngest alphas seem to know how algorithms curate their media and how to bias it to fit their needs. YouTube shapes their humor, Roblox their social lives, and TikTok teaches them about skincare before they even hit middle school. There’s an entire “Sephora-tween” girl culture, with lip gloss hierarchies functioning as portable status symbols in school hallways. Boys build their own personal micro-luxury brand styles with Nike, basketball shorts, gaming, and Crocs.
Boomers were the first ‘screen’ babies - TV shaped what they wanted and knew - parents worried that it would rot their brains. Gen X were the first with home computers and parents worried that it would rot their brains, Gen Y (Millennials) got the Internet and smartphones - parents worried it would rot their brains, Gen Z (my generation) got social media and tech omnipresence and it absolutely rotted our brains.
Who knows what Gen Betas (2025–2039) will get.
Shall we wax poetic?
*Who let the idle rabble in?
They have no heart to fight, and no hope to win.
Lacking the natural order of busied honeybees,
the lazy groan with every hour.
They’re stuck with friends, who cheer them
and who, in clinging, add more measures of cost.
A thousand of their actions end to one purpose -
hoping that a benevolent heaven will provide. *
Enough of that business..
Oh, if an alpha says “6-7,” you should respond “41”
and if you’re asked what “Group 7” is - it’s the hot girl group (at school).
You’re welcome.
.
.
Songs for this:
Simply Couldn't Care by Tracey Thorn
Only a fool would say that by Ivy
*Falstaff (Henry IV) = a drinking, scheming, gluttonous man who avoids exertions
Nov 5, 2025
Nov 5, 2025 at 4:07 PM UTC
We exist in the world
Of the living;
Living with the ghost of absence —
All the many losses;
We carry them in our breath,
In our bones,
In our eternity of memories
Passed down through generations,
After generation,
After generation —
Losing ourselves
But gaining many losses,
Becoming ghosts of absence —
Aug 3, 2025
Aug 3, 2025 at 4:46 PM UTC
The sky,
The sky,
The sky calls out
To you,
To you,
To you, no more
Instead,
Instead,
Instead an old
Hickory tree
That’s lived through
War.
The water,
The water,
The water now
Only,
Only,
Only fills a
Ceramic mug
And a cup
made of
Glass.
The sun,
The sun,
The sun shouts out
To you,
To you,
To you, no more
Instead,
Instead,
Instead a piece of
Ice
That does nothing
But sit around
And melt.
A screen,
A screen,
A screen stares flat
Into,
Into,
Into the black
Abyss,
Abyss,
Abyss that is the
Remnants of
A
Heart.
Aug 1, 2025
Aug 1, 2025 at 7:40 AM UTC
The moon, in its monolith state,
watching the earth as it torments itself alive.
The flames, sprinting house to house,
building to building-
cleaning the flesh and bones of the fleeing,
while it feasts on their names.
"Father! Father! Why are they doing this to us?!"
"Son...because we... are aliens..."
"Father?..."
...
...
...
Chains are put on,
running through generation to generation,
feeding on revenge, rage, and trauma-
down to the ancestral, cultural r’üts of the race.
Until then, the oppressed stares into their ancient scars.
Only seeing their own hands
dripping with fresh bludhymn
for the actions that are not
yet-
committed.
Clouds pass overhead.
Time grows ancient.
"Is it because we are devils?"
-centuries of clouds pass-
"... because we are robots."
-centuries of clouds pass-
"They imprisoned - the humans."
-centuries of clouds pass-
"Why am I born as an angel?"
-centuries of clouds pass-
"Why am I... different?"
These voices echo throughout the sky-
into roots that remember
every life they've ever swallowed,
into blood that refuses
to forget a single drop,
into threads that
can never unravel,
into...
upon...
its own...
endternal...
reflection.
Thus, built upon oppression,
after oppression–
after oppression–
after oppression–
after oppression–
after…
Apr 28, 2025
Apr 28, 2025 at 5:53 PM UTC
This is not a common era
The trouble is threefold
Drinking from an empty glass
Opening the door to strangers
Walking along these jagged cliffs
If you tolerate this
Your children will be next
Mar 11, 2025
Mar 11, 2025 at 12:54 PM UTC
The mason chipped flecks
from slate with a nail,
each tiny grey speck
carving a brief tale
that strips a life’s fame
down to the merest detail:
two dates, one name,
in letters faint and pale.
It asks One to bless
them who’ve passed through the veil,
to grant them their rest
’til resurrection prevails.
The mason too is long gone,
none live who his name still bewail;
he lies beneath the stone
that another past mason regaled.
Jan 24, 2025
Jan 24, 2025 at 6:03 PM UTC
I stand in front of a stone library
that once held great knowledge therein,
but stands now empty under skies dreary.
I whisper a prayer for our sins:
Please, Lord, let the children who follow us
grow wiser than we ever were.
Let them yet be the loving kindness
that we have signally failed to confer.
I doubt that they will ever forgive us
for this fallen world that we’re handing down
thanks to all the blind disservice
by leaving little but ash on the ground.
Before us all stand two stone gates
each leading to diverging roads:
The one leads to our visible fate
while the other fate overthrows.
Please, Lord, let those born in these days
choose the path of the unknown
instead of taking the road that behind us lays:
They shall our foolishness swiftly outgrow.
What few blessings I may pass on to you,
O dear reader of the future’s present,
I give you freely in hopes of a new
rebirth in a world without end, amen.
Jan 18, 2025
Jan 18, 2025 at 9:05 AM UTC
It’s a broken world
we need imperfect solutions
and there are plenty of questions
is it even possible to correct systemic
problems with individual solutions?
I recycle, so everything’s ok, ya?
some would usher in a revolution
while others would stand pat, thinking
they can marginally beat the house
the young believe the old are problematic,
out of touch and largely to blame for the world
the old push back on youthful, impractical,
self-indulgent and self-righteous idealisms
both groups must eventually wrestle with thorny questions
I doubt we could all agree on a short manifesto
or even a pithy rallying cry.
How about something brutal, almost offensive?
Dylan Thomas suggested we rage against the dying of the light,
but then again, it seems that's all we do these days—rage.
There’s a Korean concept called hwabyung,
or “burning sickness”—an intense, suppressed rage
that can blind and destroy us if we’re not careful
Science says we face a direct and bludgeoning future,
that we must be tenacious with the next phase of our evolution
—but must we be adults? Science is so 2014, and we’re all so smart.
.
.
Songs for this:
Dance the Night Away by The Mavericks
I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack
Dec 28, 2024
Dec 28, 2024 at 1:15 AM UTC
Old and new, side by side,
always riding changing tides.
Ebb and flow, rise and fall,
topsy turvy times for all.
Old church clock strikes at noon,
a smartwatch plays a tune,
then and now we measure time —
see how our times seem to rhyme
Oct 21, 2024
Oct 21, 2024 at 9:40 AM UTC
The dead are still wriggling.
I thought I'd stamped hard enough
Twisted my heel long enough
Been vicious enough
To render their meddling
Null in their void
Enough to create them sterile
In their bequest
To bestow a double portion
Of pain.
I thought they were dead
And gone.
I was wrong.
Oct 20, 2024
Oct 20, 2024 at 2:43 PM UTC
I’m tired of influencers faking nervousness.
my generation wants to care less
these days.
it’s a counter-current hack.
we want to be less defined.
we can search and reflect for ourselves.
we’re sick of the emotion
that’s all over everyone’s faces,
the unsightly splotches of opinion.
the entire election machine,
the process of getting there, is smudged.
It’s a curated mess, an advising spin,
an incomprehensible hex:
“Oh profit pondering,
contradictory means to an end
- bless weave, and conceal,
bloodless dollar debt options,
painful penny pincher paradoxes,
and deadly debt bliss dilemmas..”
“Is this a witch or an arbitrager?” Lisa asked, after rudely leaning over and reading up to this point.
“I was shooting for a numinous type of beat,” I revealed.
“We’re supposed to be working on our thesis definitions,” she said accusingly.
“Are you not challenged, here, hour by hour?” I asked sarcastically.
“I need ideas - well - I have too many ideas, I need some focus, I wanted to see what you had.”
I deadpan looked at her, “Well, you broke the spell - I lost my train.” I complained dryly.
“Don’t put me in a situation.” she said, waving my gripe off as insignificant.
.
.
Songs for this:
Easier Said Than Done by Thee Sacred Souls
drive ME crazy! by Lil Yachty
Melt by Nilüfer Yany
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 at 3:06 PM UTC
Learn from our Mother Tongues
Dance to our Sister Tongues
Laugh with our Daughter Tongues
and look to our yet-to-comes
Sep 4, 2024
Sep 4, 2024 at 4:01 PM UTC
A thought to think about, in your mind,
If you died today, what kind of memories,
Would you leave behind?
You live your life every day, is the knowledge,
In your soul, growing in many ways,
Or is your life, the same habit every day?
Do you ever think pass tomorrow,
What this life will be in future days,
Will every one be free, or forced to live a certain way,
Our generation, is creating the future days,
We are to share our wisdom, with those of the future,
So, they will understand today, that no one,
In this life will forever stay.
The Original: Tom Maxwell © 06/13/2024 AD
Jul 30, 2024
Jul 30, 2024 at 7:06 AM UTC
_Who am I,_
But the meaningless purpose, set out
To echoes of their tears— dancing their fires
upon each tongue. _Am I wrong wanting not,
to be as equal to parentages?_
What does it mean to be free; to be not
Set to be, or set free in a world, only not to be
Anything it recognizes— for the freer person in
this world, are only but the dead. _So must I,
sacrifice my life, to then feel alive?_
My time each day, is all amalgamation of
Escapeless breath. Oh, isn’t it such a waste to
Be young; for the subtle interest of being ill trained
By the perception of the Owed?
For our youth is truly a debt to those
who train us to be better—
But it’s a lesson not meant to be free,
for when you meet their age, you like them,
feel something is owed.
_“Oh, where is the time, I had invested in you,
The wisdom and guidance my
hand laid upon your head?
For from the full of my flesh, I raised you up,
From being a fool. I had decided your
purpose from what I had seen fit,”_
Enough then said; to ask of you again,
_who am I, who am I then?_
Apr 19, 2024
Apr 19, 2024 at 11:15 AM UTC