When Things Get Older, They Tend To Leak There is a tree in my yard leaking sap outside a cave formed by a leaking crack; My car leaks oil and leaves a mark in the parking lot, evidence I parked by the old church up the road that leaks, it's brick walls heavy with the years; the pipes in the basement leak as do the gutter that frames the roof, the washing machine has a small trickle, smaller than the one from the faucet on the bathroom's sink. I had a bucket to catch the leaks but, you guessed it, it leaked, a hole in the bottom. I threw it away. They make tape for pipes and faucets, and hoses and gutters, but not for my body; my armpits leak like my nose intermittently, when it's hot or cold respectively, my dick leaks in dribbles when I sleep. Even my eyes leak when I think of everything that leaks, and worse than that are the unseen leaks; when I say 'I'm fine,' barely with a straight face or clench my fist in a flash of fear or anger at getting older, but sometimes I smile and leak the permission for calm, sometimes I let the pen leak out my dreams as a song.

Not only can we write about the messy, we really must write about what is unspoken

#NaPoMo #NationalPoetryMonth #Poetry #Poem

Breaking Down Elizabeth Bishop's “One Art” Line-by-Line: Loss, Love, and Life YouTube video by Kevin Hogan

Because going live at 4:30 am outside Baltimore is how we roll

New video up on one of my favorite poems

Check it out and like, subscribe and comment

youtube.com/live/Bh5jsZc...

With All Apologies to Friedrich God is dead? Try the Poet is Dead. The Poet remains Dead and Academia has killed her. How shall we tell ourselves the mysteries, the killers of our own voice? What was pure and beautiful in line and word unformed has been bludgeoned to death, scorned by the critics pen; Their death is the cruelest deed done. Who will erase the ink stain from the page? Where is a blank page to start again? What joyous rhapsody? What solemn cacophony? Must we not be poets so we can simply rhyme? How shall we craft to order time? The Poet is Dead - no fanfare - no song - Terrifying freedom of what will come.

It was quick and painless

This poem is in dialogue with Nietzsche (from The Gay Science as best as I can remember it).

Poetry is as close to God as we may know and without it there is a collapse of a shared source of meaning.

#NaPoMo #NationalPoetryMonth #PoetrySky #Poem

Bypassing Sugar City Colorado If I were to take you to those candy gardens, - one side to be eaten, the other saved for latter - How could I know if you really wanted pretzels or lemons, or to live there in a cassonade palace, And if after arriving your grandmother were waiting at the top with a toothbrush or you were barefooted and cold all the time — not just at night when you try to get some sleep and dream of going where you want, even if it was made of sugar and would rot your teeth.

This has been around since the mid 90s as a prose poem. It got a facelift this morning while thinking about how offering to share a dream is risky because desire is complicated and paradise can feel like a trap once you are inside it.

#NaPoMo #NationalPoetryMonth #Poetrysky #poem

my account after years is now saying this dumb [redacted], what gives?

How To Write Poetry Without Overthinking YouTube video by Kevin Hogan

New short

youtube.com/shorts/-dQ0E...

Who Decides What Poetry Is? YouTube video by Kevin Hogan

Tried something new

Who decides what poetry is?

If you like, hit the thumbs up and subscribe for me, it's tough out on the streets

#NaPoMo #NationalPoetryMonth #Poetry #PoetrySky

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkBW...

Heaven Struggled Against The Earth There was a question that refused an answer the rain knows, just outside the town of thatched roof homes and gardens: the key to dispell the mornings grief, secret beauty, this vista showing the one safe route - the river wilder and full of noise - unafraid of the night; on a boat made of bones the water laps and the bank towers above home, sick with frost and snow in the vast spaces under the sky. Heaven struggles, offers cover, against protean earth carved by heavy rain.

Thinking about grief #NaPoMo #nationalpoetrymonth #Poetry #Poetrysky

We are the dead generation, killed when Hinkley missed Ray-gun, left to sow discord, jealous of the past we were sold We are dead, devoid of awe, lost to one hundred cable channels, video games and God, raised by each other in the woods, alone We are dead in our dreams of golden electrical shows; Shakespeare laughs that we could have read our story in iambs. We are dead and die we did in empty houses, a microwave dinner and silence in our heads: we were dead, but we were fed.

One of my apocalyptical revisions of our history that is probably true #nationalpoetrymonth #NaPoMo #Poetry #PoetrySky

The First Art Way back when in the Garden of Eden God would laugh, "Look at Adam naming things." The animals, the land, the sky, even his hand. This went on for some time, God pointing, Adam naming, Eve watching the names pile up. Eve thought they should save the words and she dug a deep well then filled it with the words. God was amused. Eve decided they needed a bucket to retrieve the words and Adam made one from bamboo and vines. Dropping it down with a gentle precision, they'd raise the bucket as slowly to their lips; with their thirst quenched they would sing new tunes or think. They dipped into their down- fall every time they took another drink. Soon the well was spilling over, the words stringing themselves together into rhyming snakes. Prayers, chants, songs, invocations abounded until they discovered they could question befeif; the words no longer needed them to speak. The first mistake was naming the apple that had fallen to the ground at their feet; the last was when they found the apple's skin stuck between their throat and their teeth. God was quite angry, as gods tend to be, and he started screaming, "I should smite thee, but if you take the well I will let you leave." Eve said "Let's go, it's a good deal Adam. God is not our responsibility."

Always felt like you don't write a poem as much as participate in it's creation. This touches on that and also the idea of beauty (and how Americans have abandoned beauty for wealth, tech, power, and entertainment)

#nationalpoetrymonth #PoetrySky #NaPoMo #poetry

Without #poetry culture dies #PoetrySky

or use the hour and write it out, what ever it is

#Potery #PoetrySky #Poem

A Field Guide To The Insects, Second Edition, Pg 129 Stout, the cicada emerges with reddish eyes spread wide and leaves behind a former self; their transparent wings emerge shaking off the dirt. It is strange to have wings unfurl fully formed; they stretch past the abdomen; a window of stained glass covers the greenish black. They wait in silence, unable to fly -- vulnerable and fresh -- slipery from scraping away the past; the males will soon sing, their tymbals brilliant buzzing heralding the arboreal class: their existence evidenced by an exoskeleton.

Borror and White A Field Guide To The Insects, Second Edition, old book, green, text on it with title

Wanted to revisit something old because I thought it was factually wrong. Went to the trusty field guide for insects, opened it, flipped a few pages and landed on what I wanted. Turns out I was wrong. The poem then became something else #PoetrySky #Poetry #Poem

Your first breath is a promise carried on a crow's wing; this is your land, unfamiliar, swept clean under a full moon: this is your story -- Look at those first tentative steps like the tail of a snake tapering into the sand. You can't blame the crow for the clay, this story as it rises from leaf and branch burning; it is a fire that offers insight up ahead on the edge of the horizon: your breath doubling your heartbeat that's echoed as the crow wings toward dawn.

Not sure where this came from, needs a title (maybe) #Poetry #PoetrySky

Y'all have a good week coming up

memoir day, feel like I nailed this

"Our marriage had ended without announcement. Time fragmented. Life was organized around concealment. Cocaine doesn’t destroy everything at once, it rots trust, the appetite erasing memory, self-regulation an after thought. It wasn't a disaster."

4 blue lines made a picture of tobaco mosaic crystals 4 purple lines made a picture of tobaco mosaic crystals 6 lines of an infected tobabcco leaf

Was challenged to go completely experimental for a #poem so I went with a visual poem (maybe it has a name in academia 🤷‍♂️)

Visual Sonnet 1: The Secret Life Of Tobacco Mosaic Virus

#poetry #PoetrySky

His Name Was Mathew Russell The photo held with a gaze has fallen from the wall, glass cracked radiates out from the bottom left corner from the force of it's falling, or from the looks you glared like daggers at that almost perfect face. It was taken by the ocean six months before you died; six months I wished you were dead. I dreamed of your death, almost every night for the thirty months you had molested me, and it came like I envisioned; hot metal ripping your flesh, your god-like face bruised black with the force of the windshield, the smell of urine and feces and relief. I saw the photo the police left on my Grandmother's kitchen table marked A through E, each telling my tale of salvation from the touch of his hands on my trembling body every Sunday, but not from the memory, before they were shuffled away in a drawer until today. Those photos that did not provide credence to the myth my family constructed. That story that hung on the wall in the living room of a darling angel took too soon mocking me. I don't bother sweeping up the glass. I see every violation committed against me in the shards, taking the photo to the trash where it belongs as my mother weeps on.

I guess today was the day. Can't say I ever wrote directly about being molested before, it has always creeped in to some poems, but not like this. There’s no moral hesitation anymore and I am allowed to feel what is often socially forbidden: relief at an abuser’s death. #Poetry #PoetrySky

Shooting A Western We will need a town, a famous face, and some resolution. An old curse carved from uncooperative sun; the day fading before film can be loaded, night left to hunt the dawn; a monument or cathedral, a jail for those who fear waking alone. The judge will reconvene the court once the world is reset, the ruling edited down and broadcast without flaws. Violating the rules of nature transgress will be granted, the drummer boy shot as an army follows. The next frames whirling across a shower of light. Storyboards tell one story to the irreverent, the shot list another to the dispensable under a cold blood moon. Justice is a world with obituary. We expect a parable, to resolve and excuse; a neat ending conveyed that is innate in its insistence God is on our side.

Always find it hard to write political things, but I needed to process #Poem #PoetrySky #Poetry

Sting Goes Rogue or The Audacity of Dream of the Blue Turtles It takes guts to walk away from the biggest band in the world. It takes defiance to then make an album that seemed designed to confuse everyone from the record company to the critics to the fans. That is exactly what Sting did in 1985. On his solo debut, "The Dream Of The Blue Turtles," he made a statement of intent that was equal parts refusal and provocation.

Sting Goes Rogue or The Audacity of Dream of the Blue Turtles

It takes guts to walk away from the biggest band in the world. It takes defiance to then make an album that seemed designed to confuse everyone from the record company to the critics to the fans. That is exactly what Sting did in 1985.…

Lover With Damp Hair She is not perfect, not a mandala or yantra, more a rock on a cliff worn smooth by rain and snow in their innocent falling; a victim of gravity She is unsymmetrical, one breast slightly larger, a birthmark on her left hip. The eye jumps and holds each beautiful imperfection, tracing an outline; a gospel of soul She is perfectly imperfect as she untwirls the towel, her hair quietly falling, a drop of water shadowing the same silhouette; undefined as she crosses the kitchen One would not want her to be perfect, carved with chisel and awl, carefully curated, among the dead in a museum or garden. She is what brings perfection.

You know when you have people pop in your head from time to time? Have one of them and instead of fighting what the mind does I try to start a dialogue. Sometimes it is more successful than others. Was reading Stevens earlier, so obviously under the influence #PoetrySky #Poem #Poetry

Watching A Panel Discussion On The Work Of Frank O’Hara Frank O'Hara thought he was a funny guy. He did this then he did that and he told you about it. Now we have panels dissecting each word as if his poems were dead; a post mortem where they declare today is devoid of such brilliance. They don't realize poetry is not dead, it’s just not in their classrooms and textbooks.

Watching A Panel Discussion On The Work Of Frank O’Hara

Frank O'Hara thought he was a funny guy. He did this then he did that and he told you about it. Now we have panels dissecting each word as if his poems were dead; a post mortem where they declare today is devoid of such brilliance. They don't…

Connecticut’s Finest: Residual Groove Residual Groove creates the kind of music that conjures late night vinyl, incense, and black lights pouring from under the door at the coolest afterparty you've ever been to. It's smoky, half-remembered funk and soulful rock riffs, some weird cross between nostalgia and infinite possibility, that they stretch over stadium sized hooks you didn't know you needed. It's as if the band was born on the edge of a late night jam session that never stopped.

Connecticut’s Finest: Residual Groove

Residual Groove creates the kind of music that conjures late night vinyl, incense, and black lights pouring from under the door at the coolest afterparty you've ever been to. It's smoky, half-remembered funk and soulful rock riffs, some weird cross between…

Awake in the Static or The Prelude to a Renaissance There is an energy out there, a strange tension in the air. It's not jubilant or even hopeful, hanging just below the surface. Think when a band is between songs, time hangs for a minute, the amps hum, the mic crackles, and no one is sure what will happen next. The one thing you are sure of, something is coming. It's not over, there will be another song.

Awake in the Static or The Prelude to a Renaissance

There is an energy out there, a strange tension in the air. It's not jubilant or even hopeful, hanging just below the surface. Think when a band is between songs, time hangs for a minute, the amps hum, the mic crackles, and no one is sure what…

How Disco Stole The Soul: Disco and the End of The Sound Of Philadelphia There was a time when The Sound of Philadelphia ruled the airwaves with elegance; a lush soul symphony where they wore their hearts on their sleeves and in the span of one four-minute song you could go from heartbreak to hope. They called it TSOP, the brainchild of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. It was a hit factory that rivaled Detroit and Memphis.

How Disco Stole The Soul: Disco and the End of The Sound Of Philadelphia

There was a time when The Sound of Philadelphia ruled the airwaves with elegance; a lush soul symphony where they wore their hearts on their sleeves and in the span of one four-minute song you could go from heartbreak to…

Poet / Not Poet I have never been published by a poetry 'zine or university press; the former I am too square, too misshappen for the latter. I don't write in strict iambs, but give me fourteen lines and I will turn you on Shakespeare Maybe it ain't always pretty, but the diamonds are there, mined with a sledgehammer and set in tin and lead. My metaphors aren't neat and often stammer, cough and sputter. They say: "you can't put a can of tuna in a coffin or write odes to dead insects." My poems are not stately, not neatly espoused in rhyming quatrains. I never got a fellowship to go to Paris and write an opus about some obscure painting in the Louve. I go to the library and check out a book to see the obscure painting. I can't smell the painting in a picture or feel the air around it, instead I take a dare, breathing in the dust from dried ink and decaying paper that has sat untouched for years. They say "you can't find poetry there."

feeling meta and bitchy this morning, but I am trying to frame it through love. I'll see where this lands in a few days and if it has legs #Poetry #PoetrySky

Tedeshi Trucks Band March 18th 2026 Review and Recap There are bands that play songs, and then there are bands that play time. It is stretched, bent, allowed to breathe until a four minute song becomes a whole emotional weather system. A band like Tedeshi Trucks Band, whose shows are like walking into a Southern soul revival where the sermon comes down in distorted guitars, screaming brass, and gritty vocals.

Tedeshi Trucks Band March 18th 2026 Review and Recap

There are bands that play songs, and then there are bands that play time. It is stretched, bent, allowed to breathe until a four minute song becomes a whole emotional weather system. A band like Tedeshi Trucks Band, whose shows are like walking…

Side One, Side Two, and the Death of Discipline or How Streaming Killed LP Listening to a record is ritual. You gently remove the vinyl from the sleeve, place it on the turntable and lower the tone arm. Twenty minutes later you lift it, flip the record and play side two. Side one had the big opener, the one with the hook, and the radio single. Side two you'd get a little deeper, vulnerable or weird, and often find magic.

Side One, Side Two, and the Death of Discipline or How Streaming Killed LP

Listening to a record is ritual. You gently remove the vinyl from the sleeve, place it on the turntable and lower the tone arm. Twenty minutes later you lift it, flip the record and play side two. Side one had the big…

I will

The Poetry-Industrial Complex: Who Decides What Poetry Is? You can hear it barrooms and coffee shops, that old gripe that poetry is run by gatekeepers. The real stuff, the guttural, late night truth, doesn’t live in magazines of MFA workshops. It liv…

The Poetry-Industrial Complex: Who Decides What Poetry Is?

There is a strange little ecosystem, a poetry-industrial complex so to speak. It is made of small magazines, university presses, and workshop networks. It follows fashion and rewards proximity

inertiasatori.com/2026/03/16/t...

The Poetry-Industrial Complex: Who Decides What Poetry Is? You can hear it barrooms and coffee shops, that old gripe that poetry is run by gatekeepers. The real stuff, the guttural, late night truth, doesn’t live in magazines of MFA workshops. It liv…

The Poetry-Industrial Complex: Who Decides What Poetry Is?

#poetry #PoetrySky

inertiasatori.com/2026/03/16/t...