#oregon
There is a need in Portland, Oregon.
Yesterday minors walked out of schools to protest ICE
Minors
Children
Children confronted with "Non-lethals"
But they couldn't breathe.
They call it a 'warning shot' while a child’s eyes burn on North Fessenden,
While 1,900 chairs sit empty at dinner tables across the state.
The minors from McDaniel didn't just walk out of class;
They walked into the fog to breathe for those who can't
A ghost-father’s car still idling on North Fessenden,
Doors open to the rain, the school-bell ringing for no one.
Today, the city is a hollow bell
—no work, no school, no spending—
The engine was still running on North Fessenden,
A Tuesday morning carpool turned into a crime of being.
His kids watched from the glass—fifteen and seventeen—
As the father who drove them was pulled into the grey.
Then the "warning shots" popped like static in the air,
A chemical cloud for the children left behind,
To remind them that even on the way to math class,
The sidewalk is a border they aren’t allowed to cross.
Dec 18, 2025
Dec 18, 2025 at 6:36 PM UTC
On my journey to my grandmother’s, the landscape holds my attention with subtleties.
Muted hues of soft lavender, pale brown, and ashy green painted outside the dashboard. Everything peeking out from a gentle coat of dust.
Yellow weeds and thistles dot the golden hills.
This corner of the country feels like a cherished family heirloom. The color palette resonates with my only sense of familiarity. Maybe it is my fixation on the colors themselves that buffer any sense of grief I carry towards instability. None of us in my family have claimed permanency in structure. Yet, my grandmother’s home is a sanctuary.
Sep 5, 2023
Sep 5, 2023 at 1:32 AM UTC
i only made it twenty-four hours in a place i thought i had a love affair with.
i only made it about twelve hours in the presence of someone i had created a false narrative for.
it only took me about five seconds to realize that something was wrong.
i shouldn’t be here.
“there’s some spark for you and i.”
but i mustn’t have understood as there’s no room for a broad like me.
twenty-four hours later, i’m back on a plane to north carolina.
because the city of roses, your sparkle is gone and everyone i meet lacks luster.
kind of, you know... dead in the eyes.
an average day is heavy enough, but i can’t carry the weight of this entire city.
though my pockets are empty, i know where i belong - and i can put my mind to rest.
cause he’s hopeless.
Oct 3, 2021
Oct 3, 2021 at 4:50 PM UTC
writhing and screaming
i dreamt in smashed hearts and scarlet eyes
in it, i glimpsed
all the love and support i had bled myself to accomplish
was thrown out in favour of a greener man.
indeed
instead of growing firm from my current status as a support beam
into the proper foundations
you chose to forsake me
for one so much more accomplished than I.
often horrid foresights of this nature plague me
a small tick i cannot rid myself of
each time I dedicate my heart to one, and one alone
the genesis of this disgusting anticipation
might easily be traced to the progenitor
that first yearning i felt so many years ago
it was early in my youth
i fancied myself smitten with a newfound human
after childishly condemning myself to romantic solitude
at the onset of puberty
she taught me the intensity of infatuation
the lovely languish of being head over heels
and not a fortnight later
sent me into the deepest depths of despair
for what she had sworn to the stars
she quickly replaced with a decree to the devils
"I found one better"
in my guilt and misery
i blamed myself
and forced a conclusion of the following:
these tools i fashioned to show love
do not fit any existing mold.
i, must love too much
must care more than can be beared
must support, beyond what is norm.
yet
as I awake, i breathe in my surroundings
and remind myself that this fear
though cacophonous at my lowest
is nothing more than old hurt
desperately clinging for relevance
in an existence where i know the gifts I bring
are appreciated by those who surround me
and that eventually
they will be welcomed by you.
when you are ready to accept
that which i know you deserve.
Dec 29, 2020
Dec 29, 2020 at 8:45 PM UTC
the first time i placed my lips onto yours
i chanced a gleam into what could be
immediately, i found myself blinded
and in my cold sweat
felt unworthy
it was then.
you taught me a lesson not easily forgotten
love is quite unlike the way others say it is
it starts as a masoner's quest
the foundations of trust, respect, and compassion
must be strong.
only then, can you begin the process
of forming into what it could be.
so dear,
take my hand
help me build the cornerstones
and transform us beyond this tired dynamic
of part time lovers.
our one kiss
showed me all we could be.
Nov 28, 2020
Nov 28, 2020 at 2:55 PM UTC
when you leave
you do so gleaming and gracefully
the words on your lips conveying a sweet, careful goodbye
it was today.
i breathed a sign in the air
as it filled my lungs, the vision overcame me
marked with deserved happiness
a light, perhaps from the heavens
that this union is yet another pillar
in the ever growing foundations
of what will surely become
the place i am destined to be
if not in your arms,
than in the generous love of a friend
whom daily, reminds me of what i could be,
what i should be,
where my dreams could propel me
should i follow the ***** you so gently remind me i have.
my heart.
Nov 12, 2020
Nov 12, 2020 at 2:38 AM UTC
In July, I collect stardust
And text dust
I linger in Shakespeare’s shadow
And who knew
He had a home in Oregon
I walk along his stairs
Finding myself hovering in front
A trio of theatres, tall witches
Brewing a cauldron of magic
Each performance, enticing
Crowds from every corner
And I follow in suit
Getting lost in the magic
That makes me want
To not return home
Oct 14, 2020
Oct 14, 2020 at 11:32 PM UTC
I dreamt of lighter fluid
As desert rain
Matchsticks
Stricken against the wind
Building into a phosphorus
Shower
A smiling inferno
In the fast lane
Hot cinder rims
Giving joyride the third degree
With fiscal intentions
Of burning this
Highway
Right off the map
Sep 30, 2020
Sep 30, 2020 at 10:25 AM UTC
watch the sun set red through wildfire smoke
from the roof of a battered minivan
that's weathered all the storms of
our Oregon mountain home--
we find ourselves here, repeatedly.
lost on rocky dirt roads by the cliff's edge,
trying to figure out what it means to be twenty
in a world that more and more these days
seems to be crumbling around us--
drive us somewhere never listed on the map,
with music blaring through broken speakers
we'll make our own destination.
Sep 13, 2020
Sep 13, 2020 at 9:43 PM UTC
Close your eyes, take in a deep breath of the salty air.
Now open them.
With fresh eyes, looking out you see the deep navy blue water and numerous waves in the distant water.
Crash, crash, crashing into each other.
Pristine white cross-hatching sea foam patterns scatter and reform.
You have been walking towards the water's edge and haven't even noticed. The soft cream colored sand starts to darken and harden as you approach the water.
The wind is loud enough to drown out nearby conversations and passing cars. You are in your own world. Nothing from the tangible world can touch you. The cool wind constantly battles the sun's heat on your face and hands, causing your skin to tingle.
You reach your arms out and close your eyes, lost in the moment.
Breathing in the salty fresh air you let go of your troubles, if only for the moment.
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 11:29 AM UTC
If the United States made an Ireland . . .
It would be somewhere on the coast.
It would have massive blue rocky cliffs to hold back the ocean.
It would have fields outlined with shallow rock fences.
If the United States made an Ireland . . .
There would be every shade of green as you walk down the street.
There would be moss dangling from the trees reaching out to you.
There would be rain, lots and lots of rain!
If the United States made an Ireland . . .
People would be sailors, fishermen, and drunkards.
People would be cautious and friendly in the same moment.
People would be the biggest jokers you ever met.
It the United States made an Ireland it would be in Oregon. . .
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 11:11 AM UTC
There is a bay on the Oregon coast,
Shaped like a scallop shell
And ringed by rounded stones.
And from the darkening sky
Droop billows of blue and gray
Hanging and lit like Chinese lanterns.
Humans in the damp Northwest
Appear to drip from the clouds
In rain-washed colors
Of blue and violet,
Whose tattered clothes
Are softened and soaked
From ragged wool into rich satin.
Still others bask on shores
Of pebbles rolled by the sea,
Bone white and cloud-gray.
Down and up, down again
The light rays vault,
Painting bipeds into the land.
There are no reflections
But rather water in the air,
Looking like rain
Even on cloudless days.
Their world is saturated
Like the scarlet gowns
Of Waterhouse’s Ariadne
And the ponds of Monet,
Green as the British Isles,
Blue as the Aegean
And white as the Pantheon ruins .
Much like an ancient tomb,
The majesty of mortal lives
Commemorated in stone
Is here splashed in the air
And in every forest or cliff.
Hushing people into silence,
So they conduct the most
Serious customs in whispers,
Knowing how voices echo along
Water droplets
And mountain shadows.
Nov 19, 2019
Nov 19, 2019 at 2:50 PM UTC
rusted mailboxes
random roads
secret paths
towering trees
spotted cows
little flowers
tugged trailers
mushy moss
wooden cabins
warming smiles
swerving roads
welcoming markets
fresh fruits
loving libraries
horses grazing
growing grass
hidden creeks
crisp air
Sep 9, 2019
Sep 9, 2019 at 8:06 PM UTC
The body positive aren't *** positive.
The *** positive aren't body positive.
Portland, I'm learning my lesson.
You're the city that gives no *****
What about me, then?
Thirty years at home. No comfort.
My city, what about me?
Thirty years my home, no comfort.
The body positive aren't ******
The ****** aren't body positive.
Portland, I'm positively down.
What lesson is this supposed to teach me?
Get fit and fall in line,
Get fit and wash my mind,
Get fit and fall in line,
Get fit and wash my mind,
My type wasn't meant to live,
When we do, we tend to live like this.
(repeat)
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 11:15 PM UTC
Songs of Oregon: No. 1 “Gonna Make You Crazy, That Place”
nuts, crazy peeps
whomever wherever,
regardless of race creed color or gender (did I get ‘em all?)
current state of residence (geo-identified)
a poem - the very same recited,
as a disclaimer, a yellow finger wagging warning:
“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”
now kids, I’m a veteran of foreign travel,
many continents, cold and hot, rivers and seas,
some living, some dead,
some so big they named it Endless,
been to the great cities, Swiss villages,
pyramids, climbed Masada,
danced on grapes (why can’t I recall where)
skied the Alps, trekked the Sinai Desert,
clubbed in Rio, and danced till morn,
on a certain Greek Isle that rhymes with Mickey’s Nose
even been to L.A and San Fran, left poorer
but in sync,
always came home
with my mind decently reshaped
me/ a product of gritty unpretty grime,
streets of normal humans
acting like normal escaped mad persons,
this brutal city island instilled a
layer of fat and smog neath my skin,
a kind of migrating duck-like survival kit,
came with a homing beacon included
the those of you who know me,
perhaps too well, ken we citified islanders
love our beaches (fire hydrants)
cherish our sun dappled blessings
upon on farms (window sill herb gardens)
and sunning settlements (rooftops)
they say our tap water is secretly bottled,
sold in places where the springs purportedly
run crystalline
though we don’t got no pinot, just sweet concord grape,
so sweet, the wine of children and street nodders,
needy for instant sugar highs
so as we new Yorkers proudly
say on our license plates,
prove it or stfup!
so a first hand investigation for which
the taxpayers won’t be charged even a lousy mill,
deemed necessary to put to rest this crazy claiming warning
“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”
guessing must be something in the water and the wine
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe
nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?
Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today
Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah
Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)
over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology - well, message me asap
wow there really is a Saskatoon!
the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin
see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)
ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea
gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 5:47 AM UTC
Sometimes you walk out of this world
And into another, full of complacency.
Where all of your hopes and dreams from before,
Are revealed to be, the excuse.
The escape from present just to mentally be,
Wherever you were,
Just so long as you were free.
Free that is, from the here and now.
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 9:07 PM UTC
In the state of Oregon
the roads of air have names of snakes
and there's a smell of music in the air
music of flowers, scent of love.
Even ravens laugh, and cry with laughter
even ravens smell of snakes
and have names of love.
Blossoms cry love and ask for more,
but it's not to come,
because the grey men creep,
and their grey hands reach
my heaven on Earth.
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 7:51 AM UTC
Both furthest north & furthest west
in all of America, we drove
through pouring rain
A sign on the side of the road
read Beach 1
After days of driving, driving
through Washington, Oregon,
we arrived at a beach we never intended to find
The beach where water flowed
in streams across the sand,
where a family of seals
swam close to shore, playing,
disappearing into the flat & endless water
I saw a bald eagle for the first time
as we drove through Washington,
I watched it fly above us through the window
clouded with raindrops,
I thought I felt patriotic for a minute or two
Though I’m neither birdwatcher nor patriot,
the solemn bird left me
with a strange feeling, which I realized wasn’t patriotism--
the strength & bitterness in the bird’s eyes
and its steady, prideful flight
belonged to no country
The feeling returned to me
on this beach of another world,
or of this world before it was
The feeling was that it was good to be alive
and that I would change nothing
about my existence,
A thousand agonies were worth enduring
to have seen that bird
and the first of all beaches
When the sky is brilliantly dark,
when freshwater penetrates driftwood, joins
the ocean on the first
and only necessary beach:
Yes, it is good to be alive
Jun 27, 2018
Jun 27, 2018 at 10:30 PM UTC
There are poor neighborhoods
that are tucked into towns,
where the less educated,
where the lesser of means,
find in the dregs, the ability
to coexist with higher society.
Society is grown to the point of disease,
killing the feeble, disabling the lost,
in the name of and for some ease.
So here comes the city, meaning so well.
They said, "Let's add a train line
to a town that has none!"
Well, there goes the block.
There go the people who
barely have homes.
The Council wants to drop a line
where they see shoes bounce power lines.
What's the harm in displacing
the part of the community already dead?
The town now seems to be just fine
now that the poor are paying fines.
Why not double down and just
gentrify when history tells the story best?
Expand Portland, rid Tigard of blemish,
trade your rug for cement and track.
Beautify Tigard, please your ill desire,
don't be surprised when your eyesore
comes back.
Go ahead, pave your poverty.
Go ahead, clean your streets.
You're thinking, "Lines for dimes."
What do you think a new line means?
What do you think the traffic brings?
The sweet guillotine repeats.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 11:27 PM UTC