LIFE AIN’T FOR COWARDS.
GRIEF, LOSS, TRAUMAS AND
TRAGEDIES.
DISAPPOINTMENT AND ANGST.
SCAB OVER AND NOT FEEL?
OR
PICKED AT AND BLOODY?
ME? I CHOOSE
“COMPTEZ QUE LE MONDE EST UN GRAND NAUFRAGE, ET QUE LA DEVISE DES HOMMES EST, SAUVE QUI PEUT,” HE WROTE.
LIFE IS A SHIPWRECK,
SAVE YOURSELF IF YOU CAN.
DO NOT FORGET TO SING IN THE LIFEBOATS.
WHILE WE MOURN OUR UTOPIAN DREAMS,
I’VE SIGNED-UP TO PLAY FRENCH HORN.
NEVER PLAYED BEFORE.
YOU?
2026 issue #03 — The Delay I’m in my buddy David’s car. He’s driving me from my mom’s apartment in NYC to Newark, NJ, where I’m going to catch a plane back home to Portland. David and I have been friends for fifty years. Amazing. My phone dings. I look at it. Nothing important. Just an alert from United. *
Lifeboats. Summer. Bridges. Helpers. The rapid succession of a toddler-drunk-on-power messes is overwhelming. I’m exhausted by the sheer number of (what seem to me) reprehensible acts. My country is sickening me. federal agents shooting at (and killing) civilians actions against immigrants, federal workers, the environment, reproductive rights invading a sovereign nation and abducting its leader pardoning people who committed reprehensible
Religiously. Every Friday night, religiously, I do a particular tradition. I do the same ritual religiously every Friday night. I’m not misusing the word religiously to mean fanatically, as in the improper use of it in the sentence: She exercises religiously. I use the word religiously as it should be used—with more positive connotations—as in calmly, forgivingly, without rushing. So,
