Blind Hate

Randy Blazak On Why White Supremacy Persists

Generation Z, my daughter’s generation, is the most racially mixed and most diverse, and they are the worst nightmare of the old white supremacists.

The Orange Appreciation Award

I keep a few backyard oranges mixed in with the baseballs in the bucket I take to practice. Every time one of my teammates peeks in, he’s like, “Oranges?” question mark, when it really ought to be “Oranges!” EXCLAMATION POINT!

Recipe For Strawberry Bliss

Learn the word ennui. Resolve to do something meaningful with your life. Do something selfish and stupid instead. Go to prison.

How It Ends

It begins like this: You drop your son off at kindergarten. His first day of school. You think that nothing in your life will be as big as this: the moment he drops your hand, he who has clung to you since birth, since that first breath of air, first scream, first frantic rooting for the breast.

100 Dollars

Are you thirsty? Do you like to drink water? Are you from a generation that thinks it’s OK to drink water out of single-use plastic bottles? Then the world works for you!

Mark On The Cross

MARK HOHN, a handwritten sign said. DEC. 19, 2013. 17 YRS. Here’s what struck me like a bus. It happened to be Dec. 19. He’d died exactly two years earlier. I sat on the ground before the cross and told myself to pay attention, that this was no coincidence.

Staccato

I’m trying to work at this coffee shop / while a young woman with blue hair / and chiseled biceps, two tables away, / holds forth about how no one / should ever take medication / for anxiety and depression

Baptism

My daughter writes on her Father’s Day card, / “Thanks for baptizing me in the stream / and planting the seed of nature-love in my soul.” / Wow. I am a lucky man.

Selected Poems

I returned home from work and stood / alone in the darkest / room in the house in my blouse / and skirt, barefoot.

— from “After He Left”