HEARTLINES NEEDED   How breezily most media headlines spin people's heads in another direction— one top-story, one-stop-shopping shifting attention when the questions to ask are: who decides the headlines? how many kooks are spoiling the broth? who's washing the dishes? what neighbor needs a hand carrying groceries? what neighbor... » read this article

WHOSE WINTER LEDGER? Snow always, at first, pristine, soon mysterious, what's left unseen, too little idea of what or who gets weaned.   The local hardware store's wish came true, while some other stores didn't get their due. Under pale yellow sun the shoveling out, occasionally looking up for the... » read this article

IN ALL COUNTRIES HE IS LISTENING dry and warm and the white folk call it Indian Summer in Manhattan but there is a cat out in the dark night of rain, there is an Eskimo trudging through the snow of an analog TV, there is a man on the street... » read this article

Editor's Note: We bring our original 2008 publication of Mankh's poem back to celebrate the extraordinary announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize is being given to Barack Obama, even as he bombs innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any questions you may have ever had about the credibility of the Norwegian Nobel... » read this article

A VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMY SINGS KARAOKE   and the audience laughs but gets lost in translations, someone else's song through someone else's wooden mouth.   All that hearsay plus what's left unsaid, so many TV mouths move but what comes out is often fed, media-McCarthyism paying people to slander   yet... » read this article

This Light   hollow mind of summer heat and mercurial responses, ginger-root soda to the rescue firing up the synapses   separation of church and state is a hoax, the divine within is real   false masculinity wears a mask of separation between brother and brother, nation and nation just... » read this article

  GETTING THROUGH   empty storefronts like lost teeth   time bubbles   hollow aftermaths   chains unlinked folks gone home some searching   they say that Davids topple Goliaths and turtles take the race   yet getting through is what makes us wonder how much we can smile with... » read this article

Editor's Note: For nigh on 10 years I have been telling my friends that I've never been more optimistic in my life than I am now at age 66. Always, the response is a puzzled look or a query, "How can you say such a thing, when the world looks... » read this article

Do FD&C Colors In Products Really Improve Sales ... and If So Why?   Only when the stream clears can the pebbles at bottom be seen, nestled in for no apparent reason— a sudden current, a wind storm, a bird, deer hoof, an act of gravity, hard as, soft as, gravity... » read this article

"It's the economy, stupid!" was the Clinton-Gore campaign slogan in 1992     It's not the economy, stupid! There's the trillions of dollars war budget, and over 700 U.S. military bases throughout the world and the weapons manufacturers, the mercenaries, the sudden fastfood and other amenities all feeding the green-zone... » read this article

"The question is not whether we can afford to squander $3 trillion or $5 trillion. We can. But our strength will be sapped. There is no such thing as a free war," Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told Joint Economic Committee members in February of 2008.   Oh, what of... » read this article

Before the word "rapture" gets thoroughly abducted by evangelicals reportedly wishing to leave their clothes in a tidy little pile on earth and "exit stage left," ascending on the fumes of a divine cloud of carbon monoxide... let me reclaim the word for all those wishing to leave their clothes... » read this article

After the death of his one-year old daughter in 1816 (one of four children to live less than two years) haiku Master Issa Kobayashi eventually wrote: This dewdrop world is a dewdrop world and yet, and yet ... The brilliance of the poem is that, no matter the particular situation,... » read this article

(Inter)National Poetry Month "When you know a people by their poetry, you cannot hate them."  - Gary Steven Corseri Like Women's and Black History, Poetry has been given a month to be honored nationally. "30 days hath September..." No, that's not it. "April..." that's the one! While poets across this... » read this article

Factory of Lies Starts small, like someone late for work because of traffic (a disagreement, can't stand his/her quirks). "The coffee's good" to be polite amid the monday banter (too much milk, the lips are tight). Equipment cracked but it'll last enough to mass produce (it'll be someone else's shift... » read this article

MONUMENT He fought in no wars.   He killed no one.   Did not carry a gun.   Expressed his anger strongly at the appropriate times.   He raised his fist but never struck anyone.   More often he raised a glass.   On occasion he ate meat and killed... » read this article

Requiem for America: Wake Up American World Citizens! Many will not be able to read this and most simply won't. The civil war has been exported (again.) The red and blue are battling with Iraq and other foreign turfs. Don't kid yourselves, the two Americas are at least a dozen--... » read this article