Category Archives: Poetry
Geometry: a Love Story | Bob Shepherd
“Imagination can . . . arrange for parallel lines to meet in secret.” –Shelley Jackson, on Italo Calvino Once upon a time, there were two parallel lines, and they couldn’t stop looking at one another. My lord. Such beauty, each … Continue reading
Fact Check | Bob Shepherd
The fact that you even have to saythat Black Lives Matterand the fact that you do–you do have to say it. The fact that Putin and Trump The fact that if you tell peopleit’s about their freedom,it’s about their jobs,it’s … Continue reading
Forget Me Not
for Diane Ravitch If a fairy tale begins with a prohibition, you know it’s going to be broken . The Word was charged anew with the grandeur of Gerald Hopkins’s bold bald conjugal rhythms that sprang so springingly sprung across … Continue reading
Unholy Ghosts (Tis the Season)
This is a piece I wrote back early in December of 2018. Reprising it now because I never posted it here, and it’s important to remember, in this election season, the devastating toll that Trump’s maladministration has taken on our … Continue reading
“O Donnie Boy,” aka “Moscow’s Asset Governing America” (MAGA),” aka Vlad’s Agent Orange
(to the tune of “Danny Boy) O Donnie Boy, your handler Putin’s calling, extending thanks for the Ukraine delay. He wants to say, impeachment’s surely galling, but still the tape won’t see the light of day. But come ye back … Continue reading
A Ditty for the Don, Cheeto Trumpbalone
Ah, I feel a song coming on. There’s a big sinkhole at Mar-a-Lago. Let that sink in. Donnie is our president Although he did not win A popular plurality, And that is just a sin. Ask me what I think … Continue reading
To a Young Poet | Bob Shepherd
for Brooke Belk Your work is grounded in Earth, Mycelia conspiring with roots To fashion, again, the wordless Lotus: its petals, tongues.
Play and the Origins of Art
In the middle of the last century, anthropologists discovered something surprising: supposedly “primitive” hunter-gatherers like the Aborigines of Arnhem Land, in Northern Australia, and the !Kung San of the Kalahari, in Southern Africa, spent only about 20-something hours a week … Continue reading
