osoparavos.com

Selected recent poems in English

as the years went by 

As the years went by
I carried a childhood made of silent screams.
My first poems, at sixteen,
were romanticized lies,
tissue paper laid over open wounds,
denial dressed in rhyme,
fantasy as a life raft.
I wrote myself out of my own skin,
away from the hands that had broken,
away from the memory that would not sleep.

I fled to unknown destinations,
to comic-book worlds
where heroes always won
and villains fell without blood.
Each night I prayed to God
for mercy,
for a gentle ending,
to be released from my body,
to die before morning
and not go on.

At eighteen,
the world opened in nakedness,
in sun and grass,
in psychedelic colors,
in natural food and free bodies,
in hippie orgies,
in peace marches,
in cries against war,
and the pleasure of the primal scream
that tore through the chest.

I fled the feminine rhyme,
the soft endings,
driven by simplified psychology
and the era’s popular spiritual slogans.
“I’m okay, you’re okay”
eventually became
“I’m okay,
but you send me to the basement,”
where the darkness waited
like an old companion.

In my twenties,
my desire shifted shape,
from two directions
to one.
Bisexuality became homosexuality,
and my verses
grew more intellectual,
more abstract,
artistically veiled
like smoked glass.

I danced my nights away
in elite clubs
in New York,
in London,
in Paris,
disco lights like blinking altars,
bodies in rhythm,
intoxication as pulse,
barely softened
by my work as a classical pianist.

In my thirties,
my career took form:
publishing and poetry,
words as livelihood.
I fled a failing America
by moving to Europe,
crossing the ocean
as if water could cleanse.
My poetry became multilingual;
English welcomed other tongues.

Spanish arrived,
French arrived,
Italian arrived,
Norwegian arrived,
Portuguese arrived,
languages layering themselves
like new skins
over the old.
Yet my many marriages
and divorces

still masked the violence
and sexual abuse
that marked my daily life.
I added more titles:
AIDS activist,
cultural activist,
public speaker.
I wrote and painted
about healing,
through encounters with death,
my own and others’.

I traveled the world in earnest,
found God in nature,
in myself,
and sometimes in other people.
Gradually, poetry
replaced romantic adventure,
wine and tobacco,
therapy and the constant need
to fill my life with blazing drama.

And now, in my seventies,
poetry is no longer something I do.
It is no longer an escape
born of addiction to survival feats
forged in self-inflicted and desired pain,
in the pursuit of suffering.

My poetry is now who I am.
And my brilliance
is my honesty.

As the years have gone by,
I live.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_________________

DIRTY TALK 

Dirty talking shadows in
dimly-lit smoke-filled bars
stir restless gonads to
suggestion, proposition
and sweet, nasty lies.
The scent of body sweat
mingles with department store
perfume like oil and water,
leather and silk —
unlikely, yet strangely magnetic.
Oh yeah …
I love the way the lie
exuding from your posing stance
binds my wrists and genitals
pulling me to my knees,
demanding nameless submission.
Across the distance we begin a
sultry dance of anonymous flirtation:
I turn to catch your stare,
you look away;
my eyes drop to my cocktail,
yours slowly scan my torso and loins.
I acknowledge with a smile and you
walk away because I broke the rules,
was too eager to collude fantasy
with reality and was, therefore, unsafe.
You feign indifference as you watch me
leave with another two hours later.
And I’m already half-spent as
I prepare to torpedo our dirty talk
into the bowels of my compromise.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

________________

A poet’s lament

I learned early
that silence is not empty—
it is crowded with ghosts
that only I can hear.

They come at night, mostly,
when the world loosens its grip
on noise and obligation,
when laughter belongs to other rooms
and I am left with the echo of mine.

There is a cost to this—
to sitting still while life
moves like a river past your unmoving feet,
to choosing the cold companionship of words
over the warm, dissolving chaos of people.

I have watched friendships thin
like worn paper,
watched love grow tired
of knocking on a door
I would not open
because I was busy
trying to describe the sound of knocking.

You think poetry is beauty—
but beauty is only the surface tension
of something deeper,
something breaking.

Every line I write
is paid for in absence.
Every metaphor
is a moment I did not live,
but instead dissected,
pinned to a page like a fragile wing.

I have loved in fragments,
remembered in excess,
imagined entire worlds
just to avoid the unfinished one
waiting outside my window.

And still—
still—
I return to it.

To the blank page
that feels more like home
than any pair of arms.

Because there are things
too sharp to carry in the body,
too vast to leave unnamed.
Because feeling everything
is unbearable
unless it is transformed.

So I carve my solitude
into something that breathes.
I make loneliness speak
in a language others can borrow.

And sometimes—
someone, somewhere,
reads a line
and feels less alone.

And in that fleeting, impossible moment,
the silence forgives me.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_____________________

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Copacabana shimmered in liquid gold,
the Atlantic breathing below
like an ancient chest, weary from tides.
On the top floor of the hotel,
beneath crystal chandeliers and hushed voices,
the dishes arrived like small works of art—
butter, tucupi, white wine,
edible flowers resting
on fish more delicate than memory.

The Franco-Brazilian cuisine
tried to turn the world into harmony:
silken sauces, golden shrimp,
the perfume of herbs and smoke
hovering between champagne glasses.
People chewed slowly
like those convinced they deserved beauty.

But I had walked there.

Only four blocks,
and yet it felt like crossing two planets.
I stepped around curled-up bodies on sidewalks,
around men sleeping on damp cardboard,
around women asking for coins
with children clinging to silence.
They had come down from the favelas
seeking safety beneath the lights of the beach,
like castaways searching for a lighthouse
that would never call them by name.

By the time the main course arrived,
I no longer had enough appetite
to justify such luxury.

Half the food remained untouched,
untouched like guilt.

I thought about asking for a takeaway box
and felt embarrassed—
not by poverty,
but by etiquette,
by fine porcelain,
by the absurdity that there could be protocol
for leftovers in a place
where a single bite cost more
than someone’s entire day of labor.

The waiter smiled with an old kindness.
He said, almost in a whisper:

“It’s customary to give it to the poor on your way home.”

As though he meant:
the city has already learned
to live with its own wound.

I left carrying the warm container
against my chest.
The Rio night remained impossibly beautiful,
dangerously beautiful,
and I handed out the food quickly,
without the courage to look too long
into anyone’s eyes.

One man thanked me.
A woman kissed my fingers.
Another simply held the bag
as though holding something miraculous
and temporary.

When I returned to my hotel room,
I cried.

The enormous windows showed the dark sea,
and Manhattan came rushing back—
me avoiding homeless people there too
beneath cold winter lights,
too hurried, too occupied,
too trained not to see.

But in Rio,
the distances felt crueler.

There, wealth and poverty
did not live in separate neighborhoods:
they dined on the same avenue,
breathed the same salt air,
shared the same moon over the ocean.

I thought about shortening my trip.
I wanted to flee that fractured beauty,
the guilt that clung to my skin
like sea mist.

But I did not leave.

The next morning,
I boarded a local bus to Paraty.
And as Rio disappeared through the window,
with its green hills
and impossible contrasts,
I realized some cities
do not let us leave unchanged.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_________________

ozempic…

In the square where the sea-breeze smoked
and Catania tasted of salt and lemon,
the tourist entered, all breath and dreams,
with eyes far larger than fate intended.

The tables gleamed like little altars,
the glasses sang in quiet tones,
and from the kitchen drifted fragrances
strong enough to tempt even saints.

“Bring me the lobster pasta,”
he said, without consulting his stomach.
The chef smiled beneath his mustache,
already knowing the weight of that desire.

He bit lovingly into the appetizer,
sipped the deep red wine,
and for one perfect moment believed himself
the king of appetite and pleasure.

But when the great plate finally arrived—
a steaming mountain red with sauce—
his soul fell silent inside him,
and his heart quietly stepped backward.

Every forkful seemed to multiply.
The pasta lengthened its shadow.
The lobster, queen of the sea,
became both battle and punishment.

He managed half of it, perhaps less,
then surrendered with lowered eyes.
The waiters gathered, deeply concerned.

“Sir… you did not enjoy it?”

“No, no,” he sighed, nearly defeated,
“it is magnificent, honestly…
but this pasta grows larger with every bite,
as though enchanted in the pot.”

Yet the Sicilian waiters, stubborn and proud,
answered with complete conviction:

“These are perfectly normal portions.
This is how we eat in Sicily.”

He paid, left a generous tip,
and with embarrassment hanging from his neck
dragged himself toward the black Uber
waiting beneath the streetlights.

And as the hotel drew closer
and Etna smoked in the distance,
he thought with sorrow and resentment:

“Ozempic has ruined
another beautiful Sicilian miracle.”

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

Erotic letter 

So sweet…

Let’s start with a kiss on the mouth to open the door to your sacred temple. Just once. Sex always starts like this, my love. As I tie your wrists behind your back, I gently wrap my arms around your neck and shoulders, then penetrate your soft ears with my tongue, before lovingly caressing your hair. I turn you toward me. I look deeply into your eyes and kiss your lips again, this time more fervently. Then I cover your eyes with my scarf and hold you tighter, so you can smell the sweat of my pheromones, so you’re dizzy and trembling with anticipation. You’re excited, but I’m going to surprise you with soft butterfly kisses: I delicately caress your cheeks with my eyelashes. Then you begin to melt as I kiss and lick the entire front of your magnificent body, from head to toe. Before moving behind you, I tug on your cock. Your ass begins to quiver as my tongue penetrates deeper inside you. At that moment, you want to free yourself from the scarf covering your eyes and the restraints binding your wrists. You struggle against your bonds, but to no avail. For now, you are my prisoner. I will give you what you want, but only when I want it. You will obey. And you will savor every moment.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_____________________

Spectrum

The search for self-discovery
through scientific theory alone
is doomed to failure.
For all this impressive cognitive prowess
soon proves relentlessly
flawed at its core,
tainted by one’s own inability
to accept, feel, and show compassion
to others who walk similar paths.
Few understand the interconnection
between mental genius, philia, and agape,
and the nature of soul bonds
between living beings—
human and nonhuman.
The challenge is great both for
those of us on the spectrum and for those of us who are not.
The angel at your door,
whom you instinctively reject
as a nuisance and distraction,
may actually be
answering your own
unconscious call for help,
love, and understanding.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_________________

PILLOW TALK 

1.

My tranquil slumber 

was suddenly interrupted 

by the haunting melodies 

of the untouched piano, 

resting silently 

since your aunt’s passing. 

The reverberating sounds 

echoed throughout 

the chamber 

of the old Steinway, 

resonating 

with an intense longing, 

yearning 

to share its tales 

of passion and grandeur, 

urging me to 

wake up and dance 

to its rhythm. 

It felt as though 

the house was drenched 

in a visceral redness, 

emanating a powerful and 

intoxicating primal energy.

Lost in a constant cycle 

of consciousness and slumber, 

the dream remained 

my only sanctuary, 

its presence an 

unyielding force. 

The deafening silence 

surrounded me, 

enveloping my senses, 

and leaving me wondering 

whether I was a prisoner 

of your wandering dreams. 

Would everything simply 

fade away when you awoke?

I longed to sing to you 

a comforting lullaby, 

but my voice was 

drowned out by the 

stillness. 

Unable to cry out 

and risk disturbing 

our fragile peace, 

I found solace 

in the dream, preferring 

its vibrant tapestry 

to the mundane 

realities of wakefulness. 

Can you feel 

my presence 

in your dreams?

2.

So …. now what?

The reality in the wakeful state sucks.

A screaming expletive 

deafens

my right ear 

once the screeching stops

when once a second before – just a light snore

I forgive your choice of word

considering the circumstance

Give me a minute, 

I’m collecting my wits

shattered and scattering 

in 

the

silence 

that follows a full-force rear-end collision

Hang on, 

I’ve got to pull off

the I-15 

stop-and-go traffic 

4 lanes worth

creeping paralysis

109 Fahrenheit

shitty Cajon Pass !!

mad Mojave desert

sorry

Cajon Pass is innocent

it’s the day gone shitty

“It is what it is” 

the guilty party

trembles

“My vehicle was overheating,

I took my eye off you…”

Shut up!

There is nothing to add

in traffic din

no magic wand 

no fairy godmother

just crumpled metal

smashed bumper

dangling license plate

silent

weird noise

that

of now-what thoughts

tornado

daylight nightmare

eyes

wide open

o’

c  r  a  p

3.

Ah sooo! 

You ARE awake! 

Or…?!! Whatever. 

Never mind the technicalities. 

I have something 

important 

to tell you, 

but first an admission: 

your expletives deleted 

drive me wild — 

not bad bat shit crazy, 

but they make me 

feel like an 

intellectual “fuck boy”. 

Read me Kant, 

with a Russian accent 

while dressed up like 

Greta Garbo, and 

I will pant like a 

thirsty dog 

in the desert. 

But you know that, 

so let’s get down 

to business. 

I want to talk 

about blind spots. 

No not glaucoma. 

The blind spots 

in our perception, 

that shield us from 

our deeper emotions 

and taking life’s complexities 

seriously. I cling to those blind spots 

because they are comforting. 

They help me to cope without despair 

and depression. 

I thought this strategy 

was my own 

personal survival secret, 

but listening to your 

dream-state breathing 

I wonder if we actually 

exist apart 

from one another. 

And then again, 

whereas I previously thought 

that everyone other than us 

was crazy, I now sometimes 

have doubts about you too. 

Honestly, I want to smash 

this mirror of darkness. 

I cannot bear to see 

my reflection 

anymore.

Are you still there … here?

4. 

There are more than 10 calls

ahead of you

“We appreciate your…”

… patience ! … patience …!! ..

Patience…!!!

no, you don’t… 

stupid Artificial Intelligence

no IQ no alternative reasoning

Vanilla genre a dead giveaway

But that’s beside the point

Yes, Dahling… I’m awake

I see you on my side of the mirror

never mind that your side is smashed

glass is just sand, shattered, shards

revealing nothing 

your face turned to its inward eye

beautiful

drowsy

those upturned lips bely a smile

I’d reach out and caress that part of you

to make you laugh out loud

then I’d know you’ve

come

out 

of 

that 

blind spot

or dark quiet comfort space

only you know where

I sigh

then I wonder why 

the sigh in the first place

We are OK, fucked up, normally insane

morally correct in deviant ways

what the ffff does that mean!

Who defines?

Who decides?

What is Is, is all.

Simple, really

how

normal

you

and me

are

is why i love you.

5. 

“Erfahrung ohne Theorie ist blind, 

aber Theorie ohne Erfahrung ist nur 

ein Gedankenspiel.” 

So sprach Kant. 

Both Kant and Socrates  said 

“To be is to do.” 

But are we ourselves 

in our dreams, 

and did you 

remember to buy 

milk and bread 

while you were dreaming?

You see, this is 

the difference between 

you and I, and 

perhaps between 

man and woman. 

I cease to exist 

while dreaming. 

I am but a spectator.

For me, pillow talk 

is an existentialist explanation. 

For you, it is an 

extension of your dream.

Was zum Teufel…?

(Какого черта…?)

But we are otherwise 

so alike 

that it is frightening.

You who are on the right side, 

with me on the left side of this word-tattered 

mattress floating on seas

and in cloudless skies

above the desert. 

Yes, we are okay, 

and perhaps even normal.

In our dreams.

6.

Dreaming — 

like falling 

head over heels 

in love — 

is a peak experience. 

It is a syndrome, 

from which waking up 

is as painful 

as kicking 

an addiction. 

“Falling in love 

with the idea of Love” 

is a powerful drug. 

It, like all else, 

is one-sided in depth,

experience and perspective. 

We are born alone, 

die alone, 

and dream alone … 

lonely, or not.

I love your Dreaming – 

a solitary pleasure

visitors’

caricature faces

arrive

unannounced

random conversations

in undefinable rooms 

no beginning

no fairytale ending

the jolt

of

wakening

eyes 

adjusting to daylight

or not

if the moon 

shines still

– a syndrome

impossible to explain

makes perfect sense

at the time

only 

waking up

messes 

with

the sweet addiction

Reality

 – lavender

lingering fabric softener

fragrancing

sheets,

real time

antithesis

of 

the

syndrome 

Sleep well, love, 

a dream 

any time of day 

is fine, 

bliss, lovely, 

intoxicating, frightening,

it’s that thing 

we get to do alone, 

and it’s ok, 

just like being born

7.

Shhh… 

Do you hear that?

Underneath the silence.

It is the clip clip of a horse, 

or a woman in high heels —

hoofing it on a deserted highway

just crumpled metal

smashed bumper

dangling license plate

silent

weird noise

that

of now-what thoughts

tornado

daylight nightmare

eyes

wide open

I sense another expletive 

coming in over the horizon

a sweet addiction

tempting a lavender reaction 

o’

c  r  a  p

Yes, I told you before

It is the sweet scent of 

lingering fabric softener

fragrancing the 

sheets

Yes, you are right.

It is 

a real-time

antithesis

of 

the

syndrome 

the peak experience…

8. 

The alarm clock 

is about to ring 

and we have hardly 

slept a wink 

despite our

dreaming.

I cannot distinguish 

between sleep and 

wakefulness when 

I dream. 

Do you dream in 

technicolor, or 

in black and white?

Do you sometimes 

dream in foreign languages?

Is deja vu a dream state, 

a slip of the synapses?

And will we remember 

any of this when we awaken?

Are you still here, my love?

Hold me. I am afraid to wake up. 

9. 

We may dream alone, 

but sharing the same bed we are intruders — 

manipulating and influencing 

one another’s dream state 

with talking, laughing, snoring, moving, 

and walking in our sleep. 

It is then that we are 

most honest and intimate, 

sharing our innermost 

secrets. 

«Mum’s the word.

Whatever you see, and

whatever you hear … 

when you leave this bed,

please leave it here.»

I trust you, and 

I trust myself because 

the dream-state code 

keeps us safe. 

o’ lowly sheet,

cotton is thy name

woven by a hand

long before mine

took 

the partner’s clasp

in the final sigh

before

the dream state

took control

So here we lay

one beside the other

one tosses

one turns

what images cross your inward screen,

serene one?

The sheets,

well, in the morning

sheets are sheets

crumpled rumpled

wrinkled

lovely soil

don’t be in too big a hurry

to wash away

last night –

last night is but a dream

gone vanished

in the night

amid 

hazy scenes

evaporated

in 

sunrise

and wide open eyes.

The sheets know

they have 

no voice.

And now what?

Simply conjecture

gossip

did you know?

who can believe it!

them?!

the « I » supposes 

silly interferences

Yet between

the mattress dwellers

the between-sheet revelers

tis a mystery

only the dream-state code 

keeps

the

what-of-it-all

safe.

— Adam Donaldson Powell & Jeanette Skirvin

_________________

WHILE WE WAIT…

Patiently — we endure,
desperate to believe in God, justice and humanity.
Repeatedly — we suffer
from our own ignorance and immobility.
Admirably — we martyr ourselves,
tranquilizing pain with saintliness and esteem.
Inevitably — we avenge,
using the very tactics of our aggressors.
Ultimately — we are shunned
by all who thought we were extraordinary.
Typically — we wait
for the world to discover its misjudgment.
Ironically — we learn nothing,
and neither forgive nor forget.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

___________________

WHITE ROSES 

white roses lay neatly placed upon the hardened snow — just centimeters from where the still-absent tombstone will one day proudly loom over wayward leaves, single blades of grass and stalwart perennials in rainbow shades. the first tear drools, then streams down my wind-burned cheeks and others quickly follow suit in search of the meaning of life and death, as well as other unanswered mysteries prompted by your almost coincidental passing. friends urge me to go on with my life and speak of the treasure of memories and shared experiences that have made me the unique human expression that I have become, and which will further shape the lives of others I touch. but I believe in the worms which industriously toil at converting your precious bones and ashes to fertile soil which will nourish the flowers my successors will one day plant when I, quite coincidentally, find the answers you now covet. 

– Adam Donaldson Powell

____________________

an apologia of identity: the hunger that refuses taming 

Do not mistake me—
I have rehearsed this confession in mirrors,
in the dull reflection of train windows,
in the eyes of men who wanted less than myth.

I know what I am.

A collector of fractures,
a curator of exquisite ruin—
drawn not to men, but to their unspoken wounds,
to the locked rooms behind their ribs
where something feral paces, unseen.

I say love,
but it is not love as they would file it—
not the neat domestic archive of shared mornings,
of toothbrushes leaning toward one another
like obedient reeds.

No.
I want the flinch before the touch,
the hesitation before the name is spoken,
the silence that stretches too long
and dares me to trespass.

I want the man who does not yield.

And yes—
I name them like saints of a private liturgy:
Genet, all velvet crime and holy betrayal,
Mishima, carved of steel and impossible suns.

Do you hear me?
(I know you do—
you behind the fourth wall,
and you behind the fifth,
where judgment pretends not to exist.)

You see the pattern.

You see the hunger dressed as devotion.

—

I tell myself it is mercy.

That I alone am fluent
in the dialect of their restraint,
that I alone can coax the confession
from lips trained to bleed before they beg.

I imagine it—
oh, I choreograph it with obscene precision:

The moment of fracture.
The sudden yielding.
The voice, low, almost ashamed—
I am tired.

And I, the necessary witness,
would gather that exhaustion like contraband,
would cradle it, sanctify it,
call it truth.

I would say:
You are safe now.

(And would that not make me divine?)

—

But even as I speak it,
I feel the lie press against my teeth.

Safety is not what I seek.

No—
I seek the resistance,
the slow, elegant refusal
that sharpens my wanting
into something almost beautiful.

If they yield too soon,
they dissolve.

If they soften,
they vanish into the terrible category of possible.

And what am I to do with possible?

What am I to do with men
who answer questions directly,
who place their wounds in my hands
like offerings already unwrapped?

They are kind.
They are available.
They are—
God forgive them—predictable.

I learn them too quickly.

Map their fears,
trace the edges of their longing,
find the lever that makes them turn toward me
with that look—
that look that says:

Tell me who to be.

And I do.

Of course I do.

I become the quiet architect of their affections,
adjusting tone, timing, distance—
a gesture withheld here,
a glance prolonged there—

until they are arranged around me
like furniture in a room
I no longer wish to inhabit.

—

This is the part I do not confess aloud:

Control is a poor substitute for conquest.

Domestication is the death of desire.

I have turned wolves into housepets,
and then wondered why they would not bite.

—

So I return, again and again,
to the unreachable.

To the men who would never let me in,
who would rather burn
than be understood.

They remain intact.

They remain other.

And therefore, they remain perfect.

—

Do you see it now?

(Yes—you do. Don’t look away.)

This is not romance.
This is not salvation.

This is identity.

I am the predator of closed doors,
the devotee of the unsaid,
the one who mistakes distance for depth
and resistance for meaning.

I do not want them as they are—
I want them at the moment of breaking,
and only if the breaking is rare,
and only if I am the cause.

—

But here is the cruel arithmetic:

The truly broken do not perform their fractures on cue.
The truly guarded do not soften for strangers.
The truly distant remain distant.

They do not need me.

And those who do need me—
those who lean, who open, who offer—
they become transparent too quickly,
their mystery evaporating
under the heat of my attention.

I outgrow them
before they have even arrived.

—

So I walk this narrow corridor
between hunger and boredom,
between myth and maintenance,
never arriving, never satisfied.

Alone—

not because no one comes close,
but because I refuse the closeness
that does not resist me.

—

Listen carefully now—
this is the closest I will come to apology:

I know the mission is impossible.

I know the men I seek
exist only at a distance
that keeps them untouchable,
unruined by my wanting.

I know that if ever one turned—
truly turned—
and said, Here, take it,

I would recoil.

Or worse—

I would accept,
and in accepting, destroy the very tension
that made him luminous.

—

And yet.

And yet—

I wake each morning with the same quiet vow:
to find the fracture that does not yield,
to love the man who cannot be had,
to stand at the threshold of another’s silence
and call it home.

—

You may call this loneliness.

You may call this pathology.

I call it—

identity.

And what is a man
without the story he refuses to abandon?

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_________________

the buffet of words 

At the gleaming counter of the delicatessen of speech,
I enter hungry for meaning, with my tongue in the room,
where verbs in jars whisper with adverbs,
and flambéed adjectives pose, vain and superb.

There are one-dollar words, small, from the market,
“thing,” “stuff,” “kind of,” the everyday bracket,
that fit in your pocket, that fix things fast,
but echo back shallow, fleeting, and vast.

Right beside them, on a silver tray, priced with flair,
rest fifty-dollar words, with a mysterious air:
“pedantic,” “idiosyncrasy,” “inexorable,” “loquacious,”
each syllable in a tie, each vowel ostentatious.

The waiter whispers: “Serve yourself with grace,”
but I trip on my own tongue—what an extravagant case!
I grab “parallelepiped” just to draw a stare,
trip on dessert and let the verb slip in mid-air.

Some words come labeled: “Do not touch, harmful,”
“irreversible,” “never,” “always”—seasoning extreme and forceful.
A pinch of these, and the dinner turns sour,
and forgiveness becomes dessert, scarce in that hour.

In a dark corner, hidden, the forbidden ones murmur,
covered by fine cloths the laws fail to encumber.
They are bitter sweets we taste in secret delight,
then wash our mouths with the soap of regret at night.

There, in a clear jar, useless words float:
“basically,” “literally”—they paddle but never take note.
They fill up the plate, puff the sentence with air,
but hunger for meaning? Ah, they don’t satisfy there.

There are also those we use just to prod,
needle-words ready to pierce and prod:
“failure,” “ridiculous,” “nobody asked you,”
served hot at the table where affection withdrew.

And those that never return, like a shattered glass,
once thrown, they splinter what used to last.
“I don’t care,” “whatever,” “you’re no good”—
we sweep afterward, but the crack stays where it stood.

But look—on the simplest, loveliest display,
rest words of forgiveness on a humble tray:
“I’m sorry,” “I was wrong,” “can I try again?”
they taste like home and make people mend.

I take a handful of these, with care and intention,
balance them gently on the plate of my mention:
a bit of lightness, a bit of precision,
less empty foam, more bread with decision.

At the register, the bill arrives—no coin will do:
you pay in consequences for each phrase you pursue.
I leave full of lessons, with a napkin of memory:
to speak is to cook destinies—and silence has a story.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

Somnambulist Winter 

I walked in sleep through kingdoms built of snow,
Where roofs bowed low beneath a muffled sky,
And time itself moved softly, slow on slow,
A breath half-held, unwilling to pass by.

The world withdrew behind a frosted veil,
Each footstep swallowed by the drift’s embrace;
No voice but wind that told a ghostly tale,
No human warmth to anchor me in place.

My thoughts grew dim like lanterns choked with ice,
My days uncounted, blurred to pallid white;
The heart beat on, obedient but concise,
A quiet metronome in endless night.

Thus hibernation claimed both mind and bone,
A gentle thief that asked no leave nor plea—
Till silence, once a refuge overthrown,
Began to echo back too loud for me.

Then came the thaw—not sudden, but a sigh,
A dripping eave, a fracture in the spell;
Rain wrote its restless script across the sky,
And woke the rivers buried deep in shell.

I stood, windswept, beneath a weeping air,
My solitude undone by liquid sound;
The storm unstitched the stillness everywhere,
And flung forgotten longings to the ground.

At last, a blaze—the brief, exultant sun!
Summer arrived like laughter at a wake;
The fjords lay glassed, and I, the wintered one,
Felt golden hours ripple in their wake.

Sun-kissed, I leaned where ancient waters gleam,
And let the mountains teach me how to be;
A quieter soul, half-waking from a dream,
Still tethered to that vast, interior sea.

Yet even then the trees began to yawn,
Their leaves aflame in final, fleeting art;
A fashion show before the closing dawn,
Each color stitched to time’s departing heart.

They shed their splendor gently, one by one,
Returning all they borrowed from the light—
And I, who walked through snow and shadowed sun,
Prepared once more to wander into night.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

The Trump years

A ledger swings like a carnival ride,
numbers screaming up, then plunging wide—
green arrows flash, then bleed to red,
while talking heads insist “ahead, ahead.”

On Main Street, shutters learn to close,
cardboard blossoms where no seeds grow,
a man folds winter into his coat,
counts loose change like a lifeboat.

High above, in mirrored glass,
profits bloom as people pass—
two worlds drift but never meet,
one dines warm, one haunts the street.

Engines roar in distant sands,
maps redrawn by unseen hands,
names dissolve in desert air,
flag-draped silence everywhere.

At borders lit by sterile light,
families fracture in the night,
papers judged, existence weighed,
mercy stalled, and fear displayed.

Sirens hum a colder tone,
a state that chills you to the bone,
where justice flickers, thin and frail,
and whispers echo through the jail.

Voices rise from podiums tall,
smooth as oil, concealing all—
truth bent thin, then stretched apart,
a practiced, almost casual art.

Allies once at table near
step away, their signals clear,
handshakes fade to distant nods,
trust dissolves in silent odds.

And through it all, a restless drum—
of what has been, what may become—
a nation riding its own divide,
unable yet to step aside.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

__________________

Nighthawk

Primal ritual cries of awakening
from innumerable cricket tribes,
during the wake of nocturnal
nigrescence, beckon the
Children of Nyx from
crepuscular seclusion.
A momentary hiatus in the
mesmerizing rubbing of wings
divulges the faint slitherings
and slinkings of creepy-crawlers
and creatures of night, in
exodus from nature’s underworld.
And keeping watch over the
order of things in no man’s land
is a vigilant nighthawk,
whose stark eyes piercing
through the darkness stir
horripilation among the meek.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_________________

Saturn’s blues 

when the moon is in Fresno

and the sun sets a purple

haze over early-autumn skies,

the cold winds of Hell

breathe heavily against

the hopes of local heroes

and the women who made them.

farmers stare off into the fields

without realizing, and housewives

pull their young close to them

bosoms – suddenly and

without explanation.

intuitively they sense the onset

of a long and severe influence;

a time of hardship and hindrance

when the faith and courage of

more than a few good men

and women are put to test.

the carousel is out-of-control,

and in the whirlwind confusion

crops will fail, loved ones will

Pass away, jobs will be lost

and the simplest of dreams will

be stifled by saturn’s blues:

a mocking nursery rhyme telling

of horror and despair, and sung

over and over again with endless

variations on the same cruel theme.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

Fictional letter to Putin

My beloved Vova. I am old now and I never learned to write electronic letters, and so I am writing to you by hand. Please excuse my familiarity, my brevity and my frankness. 

Vova, I have followed you from the very beginning of your illustrious career. You were always handsome and smart — a real «lady killer». You led our beloved homeland with intelligence and compassion. But something changed, dear Vova. I hear that fewer comrades and citizens refer to you in endearing terms now, and that some mockingly call you Бункерный дед behind your back. There is much rumor and speculation about your physical and mental health, and you no longer look happy on the television. 

The world is full of difficult challenges, to be sure, but Russians have historically always been adept at banding together against hardships and calamity. Something feels different now. The wind is no longer at our backs, and your few friends and supporters in and outside of Russia seem like a motley crew. Dear Vova, are you certain that you can trust those around you? Many seem to have their own ambitions, and it would appear that some of these perhaps see you as standing in their way.

Vova, many of my friends have lost their sons and grandsons in this senseless war. It did not seem senseless in the beginning, but the situation has since spun out of control. Even patriots like myself are now worried — worried for Russia, our men, our livelihoods, and for you dear Vova. Can you not find a way out of this hopeless situation? There has been too much war and too many threats in our history. We are weary. 

Don’t you agree, beloved Vova?!! Make an old woman happy. Return to your position as a respected leader of the world. Then, and only then, will Russia once again enjoy peace and properity … and friendship.

Blessings from

Anya Levedeva, 96 years old

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

__________________

Keeping up appearances 

There once was an influencer named Claire,
Who lounged in first class  everywhere .
With champagne and brand deals,
And “authentic” five-star meals—
(Shot thrice, then returned with a glare).

Her feed showed Maldives every week,
With captions all breezy and chic.
But rent was overdue,
And her “Paris” view?
A green screen and lighting technique.

She’d boast of her skincare “own line,”
While sipping on boxed rosé wine.
Brands queued at her door—
At least, that’s the lore—
In emails she drafted herself, quite divine.

No boyfriend would last very long,
They’d sense something subtly wrong:
Between filters and tears,
And tax-dodging fears,
Her life was a well-curated con.

So here’s to dear Claire and her flair—
For living a life debonair.
If illusion’s an art,
She’s mastered her part…
While chaos waits just off-camera there.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

________________

the cage is beautiful; the lie is ugly 

They taught us to polish the cage
until the bars reflected heaven.

To bleach the teeth.
To flatten the stomach.
To cauterize every wrinkle before it could become a sentence.
To fear softness
as though tenderness itself were a contagious disease.

And we obeyed.

We lined ourselves beneath cathedral lights
in temples made of mirrors and fluorescent mercy,
offering our bodies to the algorithmic priests:
scalpel, serum, starvation,
protein powder stirred into despair,
smiles veneered white as gravestones.

Every billboard became scripture.
Every magazine cover a commandment.
Thou shalt not age.
Thou shalt not sag.
Thou shalt not rest.
Thou shalt remain consumable.

So we learned to carve ourselves
into marketable silhouettes.

The women shaved hunger into their hips
until their ribs resembled birdcages.
The men swallowed iron and rage
until their hearts beat like trapped machinery.
Children stared into glowing screens
already apologizing for their faces.

And the rich sold immortality
like perfume.

They floated across oceans
on yachts larger than villages,
drank glacier water from crystal mouths,
posed beside infinity pools
with trophy wives lacquered in diamonds,
trophy husbands bronzed like monuments,
all of them smiling the same embalmed smile
of people terrified to stop performing.

Even paradise became labor.

Vacations were no longer journeys
but evidence.
Proof of worth.
Proof that one existed correctly.

The sunset was not watched
but uploaded.
The meal not tasted
but documented.
The kiss not felt
but displayed
like a corporate merger between attractive skulls.

And beneath it all: exhaustion.

A civilization sleepwalking on treadmills,
running nowhere,
burning calories for gods that do not love us.

Our hamster wheels glowed neon.
Our cages came with Wi-Fi.
We called it freedom
because the door was painted gold.

Meanwhile loneliness spread
through the population
like black mold beneath wallpaper.

People learned to curate themselves
but forgot how to know themselves.
Forgot how to sit in silence
without reaching for a screen
like a narcotic.

We became archivists of our own performance.

Every flaw magnified.
Every stranger a competitor.
Every friend secretly measured
for beauty, status, followers, youth.

And shame became currency.

We spent it lavishly.

We mocked the old
because we feared becoming visible to death.
Mocked the fat
because we worshipped deprivation.
Mocked the poor
because we confused wealth with virtue.
Mocked the lonely
while building entire economies
designed to isolate.

Even health became vanity wearing a lab coat.

People counted steps
but not blessings.
Measured macros
while marriages rotted in silence.
Optimized sleep cycles
yet woke each morning
with souls like abandoned shopping malls.

The self-help prophets arrived in private jets
to teach emptiness as enlightenment.

“Manifest abundance.”
“Grind harder.”
“Become your best self.”

As if the self were a product awaiting launch.

As if human beings were born defective
and must earn the right to exist
through perpetual improvement.

So we injected youth into our faces
while history collapsed around us.
Filtered our skin smooth
while forests burned.
Bought motivational water bottles
while our spirits died of thirst.

And still the machine demanded more.

More beauty.
More hustle.
More optimization.
More envy disguised as aspiration.

Because a population that hates itself
is easy to sell to.

The insecure are obedient consumers.
The lonely are profitable.
The exhausted do not revolt.

So the engines roared on.

Factories of desire.
Assembly lines of inadequacy.
Infinite scrolling corridors
where millions wandered,
starving for meaning
while feasting on appearances.

And somewhere beneath the noise,
beneath the cosmetic smiles
and curated vacations
and chemically preserved youth,

the body kept telling the truth.

In panic attacks.
In insomnia.
In compulsive eating.
In numbness.
In addiction.
In quiet hatred of the mirror.

The soul does not thrive
when treated like branding material.

It withers.

Yet even now,
something stubborn survives in us.

A primitive ache
for unpurchased joy.

For laughter with crooked teeth.
For bellies unhidden.
For faces allowed to age like honest landscapes.
For love untouched by transaction.
For friendships that do not require spectators.
For mornings that belong to no corporation.
For bodies treated not as advertisements
but as homes.

Perhaps one day
we will step off the treadmill together.

Perhaps we will finally hear
the terrible silence
after the machinery stops.

And perhaps in that silence
we will discover
we were never meant to become perfect.

Only alive.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

under my skin

an overturned glass;

red wine rushes 

across the tabletop 

i let it run over 

the edge and stain 

my off-white carpet 

knowing that it will 

forever remain a

signature of our 

kiss of passion;

a reminder of a 

moment of forgetfulness 

and a time when 

i had you…

under.my.skin.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

crumpled paper

crumpled paper…
edges blood-stained
from paper cuts –
ridges of emotion
desperately trying to
conceal the words
of love that were
never meant to be
written for all posterity…

but merely muttered under
my breath in a moment
of mindless passion.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

__________________

the prudent cognoscente 

strolling through the 

barrel-lined aisles 

with her ladened cart, 

the prudent cognoscente 

pauses periodically to 

admire alimentary delicacies 

in open display.

she sneers at the spanish oranges, 

which are bruised and overripe;

and cringes at the inferior broccoli — 

so yellow and dry.

but her eyes alight with 

discovery and glee as 

she tosses aside the lid 

of the last garbage can 

and silences the nonsensical 

cravings of her refined palate 

with the simple charm of 

garden greens and aged brie.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

__________________

Imagine (NYC)

Imagine —
the city coughing itself awake
at 4:13 a.m. beneath sodium halos and trembling wires,
a thousand window-eyes blinking insomnia
into the bruise-colored dawn,
sirens drilling red spirals through avenues
where garbage trucks gnash their iron teeth
and steam rises holy from sewer grates
like the exhausted breath of buried prophets.

Imagine the ambulances first —
those white mechanical angels
howling through one-way arteries,
veins of asphalt slick with rain and gasoline,
past bodegas lit like confessionals,
past drunks asleep on church steps
with newspapers wrapped around their knees
like declarations of surrender.

Then the police cruisers —
blue constellations ricocheting off glass towers,
those mirrored monoliths
leaning down over the old brick tenements
like bankers inspecting the dying,
concrete and chrome smirking
at buildings held together by rust, prayer,
and generations of cigarette smoke.

Listen —
the city is never silent.
Even silence here
has a ventilation hum.

A woman screams three floors above a laundromat.
A television evangelist baptizes the sleepless through static walls.
Somewhere a pressure pipe bangs like a convict’s cup.
Someone drops a bottle in an alley
and the crash rings out
like civilization discovering violence all over again.

On Delancey or Houston or some other broken avenue
with too many pawn shops and payday lenders,
the sidewalks teem with apostles of exhaustion:
junkies with constellation pupils,
pickpockets smooth as jazz pianists,
girls in vinyl heels smoking beneath flickering signs
while cats patrol the dumpsters
like tiny striped gangsters
with battle-torn ears and yellow kingdom-eyes.

The cats know everything.
They slip through chain-link fences
and beneath dented Buicks
like furry Bodhisattvas of the gutter,
watching humanity barter dignity for another hour.

And above them —
the cages.

Always the cages.

Apartment windows stacked one atop another
like illuminated filing cabinets for souls.

In one rectangle of light
a shirtless man stands motionless for hours
smoking cigarette after cigarette
staring outward
as though waiting for God
to emerge from the parking garage.

In another,
a woman paces frantic circuits:
cellphone to refrigerator,
refrigerator to computer,
computer to toilet,
toilet to mirror,
mirror back to cellphone —
an insect trapped in a glowing cube
performing the sacred rituals
of metropolitan captivity.

Across the avenue
a child presses his forehead to the glass
watching helicopters orbit the projects
while his mother microwaves something pale and frozen
under fluorescent lights cruel as hospitals.

And westward —
yes, just a few blocks westward —
the whole theater changes costume.

Suddenly the streets widen and exhale.
The litter vanishes as if poverty itself
were swept away before sunrise
by invisible municipal monks.

No broken bottles.
No shouting from fire escapes.
No liquor stores armored in plexiglass.
Even the wind behaves differently there.

The trees stand obedient and manicured.
Doormen in dark coats nod solemnly
before brass revolving doors
while security cameras bloom from marble corners
like mechanical orchids.

Limousines glide noiselessly to curbs.
Taxicabs open their yellow mouths
to release women in silk
and men sculpted into perfect business geometry,
their shoes polished like corporate altars,
their smiles thin as razors.

Inside the towers
wine breath mingles with imported perfume,
espresso machines hiss softly in minimalist kitchens,
and somewhere twenty-seven floors above the avenue
a lonely executive reheats Thai food
while watching financial news in his underwear.

Another cage.

Carpeted. Climate-controlled.
Digitally secured.
Another immaculate enclosure
for another nervous mammal.

Because the bars need not be visible.

A penthouse can be a prison
just as surely as a roach-lit studio
where the radiator shrieks all winter
like a widow in opera.

And the city knows this.

The city with its thousand electric pupils
watching itself endlessly
through surveillance lenses, storefront reflections,
elevator mirrors, phone screens,
subway windows blackened by tunnel soot.

Everyone watching.
Everyone enclosed.

The broker in Tribeca
refreshing stock prices at 2 a.m.
The heroin saint nodding beneath scaffolding.
The exhausted waitress counting tip money
under a naked bulb.
The old immigrant watering plants
beside photographs of relatives long dead overseas.
The teenage camgirl adjusting ring lights
for anonymous admirers in Nebraska.
The insomniac poet wandering avenues
with pockets full of receipts and apocalypse.

All pacing.

All feeding.

All dreaming impossible exits.

Imagine the rooftops then —
water towers hunched like prehistoric animals,
pigeons exploding upward at sunrise,
the endless Morse code chatter of neon,
steam pipes, traffic lights blinking their tired commandments
to no one listening.

DON’T WALK.
WALK.
DON’T WALK.

As though freedom itself
could be regulated by municipal timing systems.

And beneath the cathedrals of finance
and beneath the shattered basketball hoops
and beneath the bridal boutiques and methadone clinics
the subway roars —
that subterranean intestine
digesting millions daily,
dragging humanity through darkness
from cage to cage to cage.

Imagine all this —
the delirious architecture of captivity,
the holy circus of appetite,
the zoo planet spinning silently through void-black space
while every creature claws for comfort
inside its designated enclosure.

Some decorate the bars with ivy.
Some with gold.
Some with pornography and prescription bottles.
Some with bookshelves.
Some with children.
Some with prayer rugs and scented candles.
Some with security systems and private elevators.
Some with nothing at all
except a mattress
and the stubborn refusal to disappear.

And still the windows glow nightly.

Billions of little illuminated terrariums
stacked toward heaven.

Look closely enough
and every face becomes the same face:

the face of the animal
who almost remembers the forest.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

__________________

Imagine (San Francisco)

Imagine —
living in a sanctuary
in some far-off exotic land:
an exclusive enclave where
hirsute eremites can escape the
intrusive indiscretions of
the vulgar and the savage.
Mind you —
nothing too extravagant:
a modest one-room flat
with light maid-service,
a spacious view and, of course,
a state-of-the-art security system.
Just imagine —
it would be a simple life
of reflection and leisure:
basking daily in sun and shade
and, when absolutely necessary,
receiving admiring guests
in true courtly fashion.
(sigh) —
What do you suppose I
should call such a place?
Certainly nothing as mundane
As Eden or Elysium.
No, it must be a name as
enchanting as the fantasy itself:
like Gangros .. or Lurana ..
or perhaps just simply Zoo.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

________________

walking the blood clot

He walks the clot at dawn
like other men walk beagles, mutts, tired retrievers
through neighborhoods smelling of rainwater, piss, bakery steam, diesel buses coughing up ghosts—
same three hours every day,
same cracked block orbiting his shoes
like a rosary made of bad arteries.

The doctors shrugged in fluorescent light,
their scalpels suddenly humble,
their diplomas curling inward like frightened leaves.
Can’t cut it out.
Can’t dissolve it down.
Can’t promise tomorrow.

So the old bastard walks.

Three times daily
he takes his clot for air,
lets it stretch its murderous little legs
through the tunnels of his body
while his cane taps time on the pavement—
clack, drag, clack—
like a blind jazz drummer refusing retirement.

The cane is not surrender.
It is a third leg,
a tripod for collapsing empires,
a skeptical saint standing beside him
in case the nerves in his calves
suddenly begin breakdancing with knives.

People notice him.
Of course they do.
The ritual man.
The gray scarecrow circling the same block
as if he were guarding something invisible.
Children ask questions.
Dog walkers invent biographies.
Widows squint at him beneath grocery-store light
thinking:
I know that face from somewhere.

And yes—
thirty years ago his cheekbones hung on posters,
his rage marched through megaphones,
his body was a statistic with a heartbeat.
AIDS activist.
Miracle survivor.
Government inconvenience.
The beautiful doomed boy
who stubbornly refused the script.

But he does not think about AIDS anymore.
Or lymphoma.
Or neuropathy.
Or blood counts, lesions, scans, prognoses, syndromes—
all those Latin curses stapled to his chart
like bureaucratic graffiti.

No.

Now he fights pain with poems.

Not good poems necessarily—
just loud enough inside his skull
to drown the electric screaming in his legs.
Poems work better than whiskey now,
better than pills that leave him floating half-dead
on the couch at 4 a.m.
wondering if sleep is rehearsal
or the main event.

So he writes lines in his head while walking.
Wild Beat lines.
Ginsberg lines with cracked hips.
Kerouac lines carrying pill organizers.
Holy holy holy cholesterol!
Holy arterial jazz!
Holy tremor and terror and Walmart pharmacy receipts!

At night exhaustion finally clubs him unconscious,
merciful as rain on a tenement roof.
He sleeps because he has outwalked fear
for one more day.

And morning—
impossibly, rudely—
comes back again.

So the old fool rises,
puts on his coat,
takes up his cane,
clips the invisible leash onto death itself,
and goes walking.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

The discussion 

In the humid dusk of Florianópolis,
where the sea rolled silver under tired gulls,
two men sat apart in a narrow restaurant
with wobbling chairs and salt in the walls.

One was from Rosario, sharp-collared,
wine-dark eyes beneath a furrowed brow.
The other from Porto Alegre, broad-handed,
sunburned shoulders, sandals full of sand.

Between them drifted garlic, fried fish,
and the murmuring hiss of beer taps.
The television above the counter
played an old Libertadores match
with the sound turned low,
as if the room itself feared trouble.

The Argentinian watched the Brazilians laughing—
too loud, he thought, too careless with words.
They slapped backs, interrupted each other,
mixed Portuguese with gestures and grins
like grammar was optional.

Why don’t they learn Spanish? he wondered bitterly.
We cross half a continent to come here.
Though he himself could not ask for salt
without pointing awkwardly at the shaker.

Across the room the Brazilian stared back, annoyed.
Another Argentine tourist with a superior face,
another man who stretched a single peso
like it was sacred scripture.

He remembered beaches after January crowds—
plastic bottles in dunes, cigarette stubs in sand.
He remembered football chants:
“Macacos da selva!”
Monkeys raised in the jungle.

And he remembered restaurant owners sighing,
counting unpaid tabs at midnight.

Their eyes met at last.
The air tightened.

“You people arrive here,”
said the Brazilian,
“and treat the island like a bargain bin.”

The Argentinian snorted.
“At least we know how to behave in public.”

“Oh yes? Like kings who forgot their wallets?”

“At least we don’t scream across restaurants.”

“At least we don’t insult an entire country.”

The owner behind the counter froze mid-polish.
Even the television crowd seemed to hush.

The Argentinian stood first.
The Brazilian followed.
Chairs scraped like knives being sharpened.

For one long second
Florianópolis held its breath.

Then the waitress arrived
with two sweating bottles of beer
she had not been asked to bring.

“Enough,” she sighed.
“You both sound married already.”

A few fishermen laughed from the back tables.
The tension cracked.

The Brazilian smirked first.
The Argentinian tried not to laugh
and failed immediately.

Soon they were drinking together,
arguing still—but softer now.

About football.
About mothers.
About inflation.
About whose barbecue deserved eternity.

The Argentinian confessed
he had always wanted to learn Portuguese
but found the nasal sounds impossible.

The Brazilian admitted
he had never met anyone from Buenos Aires before
who tipped generously.

Another beer arrived.
Then another.

By midnight they were sharing cigarettes
outside beneath the wet Atlantic wind,
calling each other hermano,
insulting each other affectionately
with the ease reserved for old friends.

And years later, whenever they met again—
whether in São Paulo, Córdoba,
or some nameless beach kiosk at summer’s edge—
they would tell the story laughing:

How hatred dissolved
not through politics,
nor history,
nor football,

but through cold beer,
fried fish,
and the strange miracle
of finally sitting at the same table.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

the gringo and apartment 302

The gringo arrived with suitcase and contract,
European smile, impeccable résumé,
thinking rent was mathematics:
deposit, signature, automatic life.

He saw the listing: “fully equipped apartment.”
He imagined discreet comfort.
He opened the door — profound silence.
There was no refrigerator or stove in sight.

“But… where is the kitchen?” he asked.
“The space is there,” the realtor replied.
“You install the rest.”
And he smiled honestly, almost modestly,
like someone explaining rain or gravity.

The gringo learned a new truth:
in Brazil, “semi-furnished”
is an advanced philosophical concept.

Then came the hidden fees:
condominium charges, IPTU, forgotten expenses.
The rent doubled without changing its name,
like old inflation returning hungry.

He requested repairs for the leak in the wall.
The landlord replied without concern:
“That already happens when it rains hard.”
“But it drips onto the bed.”
“That’s part of luck.”

The gringo spoke of rights,
the owner spoke of bills.
One cited legal precedent,
the other showed overdue installments.

Because the landlord suffered too:
a small retirement,
the bank demanding payment every day,
an apartment inherited from an aunt,
and a broken elevator turning
infinite expenses into poetry.

So every screw became a war,
every paint job a territorial dispute,
because eviction takes time,
lawsuits drag on,
and lawyers in Brazil are never cheap.

The gringo could not understand
how so much bureaucracy
could coexist
with so much improvisation.

But little by little he learned the rare art
of negotiating in the hallway,
sending polite voice messages to the guarantor,
accepting discounts in exchange for silence,
and discussing leaks with diplomatic patience.

By the end of the contract, already almost Brazilian,
the gringo painted walls, replaced the showerhead,
and photographed even the bathroom floor.

And when he finally handed over the keys,
the landlord calmly said:

“You were a good tenant.”

The gringo smiled tiredly.
It was perhaps the most sincere compliment
he had ever heard
in the country.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

The Death of Poetry 

Fifty years ago —
when poetry was still popular —
my creative writing teacher preached that,
while history repeated itself by nature,
a good poet never does.
Frowning particularly upon
‘that ever-stuttering Gertrude Stein’
and assailing the Beats as opportunists
in an age of trend, he warned
that the death of poetry
was approaching and that its demise
would precipitate intellectual senility.
The spunky old man lives in a rest home now,
and barely recognizes me when I visit.
Yet, nothing can tarnish the love I feel
as he excitedly engages me with the same
damn stories I’ve heard for fifteen years,
over … and over … again.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

__________________

Dear Body

It is perhaps time for us to talk — you know, about the elephant in the room. Yes, about aging. I’ve been thinking about the many times I encouraged you to stop complaining about aches, pains, fatigue, colds, or flu. I whispered sweet nothings in your ear while also making you feel guilty about procrastination and laziness. You were often lazy when excuses kept you from being the over-achiever you could have been. We know we can never be perfect — neither in our own eyes nor in the eyes of others.

I only tried to help. But I too have been prone to doubt, depression, and lately, dementia and memory loss. It is not your fault, my Brother. The Body and Mind are remarkable machines, normally resilient to misuse. But eventually, even the best maintenance cannot escape the inevitability of aging. We all have expiration dates.

I have not always been a good listener; and you can be stubborn too. When I ignore or work against you, you go on strike, or “have an accident.” These feuds can last years, creating physical and mental weaknesses that slow us down.

We know all this, Brother. Berating ourselves for past miscommunication is pointless now that we are older. Can we accept ourselves as we are, and enter this new phase of Life with dignity — as the supportive couple we were always meant to be?

Love ya Dude!

A Beautiful Thing

The mind is quite a beautiful thing — until one begins to lose it.

Even when the body ages, and the mind falters, there is an elegance in the way memory, imagination, and thought intertwine. We forget, we remember, and sometimes we invent entire worlds in the space between. Aging may dim the clarity, but it cannot erase the beauty entirely.

The Homecoming

Two machines work in tandem to transport the newcomer to his destination: the Incoming Arrivals terminal, some 60-feet away. One is called Body: a miraculous mechanism of impulses and veiny cylinders pumping sparks of inertia into lifeless organs and limbs. Another is Escalator: a complex simple machine, sleek metal and plastic deriving electricity from a brain unaffected by emotion.

Together, these two work to move Body from plane to terminal without alerting the emotional system. Body’s eyes fixate upon the fourth wall, noting neither destination nor the landscape in-between. Brain sends impressions of Elevator and commands to “search and find.”

Spleen sleeps, blinded by Eyes, too sophisticated to perform the long-lost functions of Ears and Nose. Vessels pump, gears spin, and Eyes observe countless peer-bodies. A signal is sent: “Everyone is doing it. Ergo, it must be right!”

Body approaches Escalator with gusto, and Spleen awakens as Escalator chuckles, “Gotcha!” Yet the hopelessness is not fully understood until Spleen realizes Body is alone in the stream of fast-walking zombies, guided by Eyes’ robotic gaze, hearing the one-way laughter of Escalator who neither sputters nor flinches.

Then and Now

Then: I pushed, I scolded, I rushed. The Body resisted. Mistakes were made, frustration grew.

Now: We move slowly, deliberately. We listen, and sometimes just observe. Mistakes are softer, frustrations are gentler. Aging is not just loss; it is a new rhythm, a careful harmony of mind and body.

Love Ya, Dude

We have survived together, learned together, faltered together. This new chapter is ours to approach with grace, humor, and acceptance. Let us honor our incredible journey — Body and Mind, forever allies.

__________________________

Epitaph 

When the last light loosens
its hold on my name,
and the careful archives of self
begin to unthread—

let the speeches fall first,
their polished arguments dimming
like coins at the bottom of a well.
Let manifestos scatter into wind,
their urgency outlived by silence.

Lay down the books I never finished,
the canvases that strained toward meaning,
the photographs that tried to trap time
and found only its echo.
Even the questions—
those bright, insistent flames—
let them flicker out without answer.

For none of these will follow me
past the small, unmarked threshold
where titles loosen,
and every cleverness is gently refused.

What will remain—
if anything dares remain—
is simpler, and far less adorned:

the quiet gravity of hands held
without witness,
the unrecorded mercies,
the forgiveness given too late
but given still,

the times I chose to stay
when leaving was easier,
the fragile courage of opening
again, and again,
despite the evidence.

Measure me there—
not in the noise I made,
nor the shadows I chased into form,
but in the warmth I kept alive
between myself and another.

If I am to be written at all,
let it be in this brief line:

that I learned, imperfectly,
how to love—
and was, for a moment,
loved in return.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

__________________

Four sonnets inspired by  Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”

I. Spring (La Primavera)

When silver trills unfasten winter’s seam,
And birds embroider light in airy thread,
The brook resumes its bright, unbroken dream,
And tender winds lift blossoms from their bed.
A shepherd sleeps where perfumed grasses lean,
While distant barks keep watch on drowsing hours;
The leaves in whispers stir what lies between
The hush of breath and murmurings of flowers.
Then pipes awake the foot and stir the ground,
A rustic pulse beneath the circling dance;
The earth itself seems tuned to that soft sound,
As joy takes root in gesture and in glance.
So spring arrives not sudden, but in song—
A world remembered, having slept so long.

II. Summer (L’estate)

The sun stands still and presses on the air,
A cuckoo tolls the hour with hollow cry;
The dove laments as if in dim despair,
While restless wings like fleeting thoughts go by.
The shepherd feels the silence start to strain,
As insects weave unease through heavy heat;
A distant tremor troubles field and brain,
Till thunder breaks the sky in fierce retreat.
Then chaos spills—hail lashes leaf and grain,
The winds contend with unrelenting force;
Bright bolts divide the darkened vault of rain,
And nature rends itself without remorse.
What languor held, now fury tears apart—
Summer reveals the tempest in its heart.

III. Autumn (L’autunno)

The harvest spills its gold in laughing hands,
And wine unfastens care from tongue and limb;
The dance grows wild, no longer bound by plans,
As daylight fades and senses wander dim.
In quiet heaps the revelers are laid,
Where dreams overtake the songs they could not end;
The night completes what merriment had made,
And wraps the world in slumber as a friend.
At dawn the horns call forth a sharper will,
The chase resumes where stillness held its sway;
Through forest paths the air with cries must fill,
Till strength and breath of prey are worn away.
Thus autumn turns from plenty into loss—
A feast, a rest, a reckoning to cross.

IV. Winter (L’inverno)

The cold makes brittle music in the bone,
Each breath a fragile thread against the air;
The stamping foot insists it stands alone
Against a wind that answers not with care.
Yet by the fire a gentler world is spun,
Where rain taps lightly on the windowpane;
A single warmth outlives the absent sun,
And quiet melodies outlast the rain.
But step outside—the glassy ground deceives,
The body slips where once it trusted ground;
The battling winds strip solace from the eaves,
And hurl their frozen arguments around.
So winter teaches in its austere art:
The edge of life, and shelter of the heart.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

________________

Be Here Now 

There is a quiet fire inside me,
small as an ember beneath winter ash,
yet faithful.
It keeps vigil
when my body mutters its betrayals—
the thick complaint of blood,
the dull alarms sounding
through exhausted corridors of bone and vein.

I have learned
that pain is not always a tyrant.
Sometimes it is only a lantern
held by a trembling hand,
warning me softly
that this house of flesh is weary,
that some rooms have gone dark.

Still—
the fire remains.

And when the body becomes too loud,
when every pulse arrives burdened
with its own prophecy,
my mind slips free
like a bird escaping smoke.

There,
in the ungoverned countries of thought and dream,
I become untethered.

I dance.

Not beautifully always—
sometimes reckless,
sometimes wild with forgetting,
my bare feet striking sparks
against invisible floors.

And I love the moment enough
to disappear inside it.

No past.
No diagnosis.
No warning bell beneath the ribs.

Only motion.
Only breath.
Only the strange holiness
of being alive for one unguarded instant.

This is my glory:
not that I am unbroken,
but that I can still travel beyond the breaking.

This is my salvation:
the inward sky no illness can imprison,
the secret door opening endlessly
behind my eyes.

So I sit beside the fire within me
and listen—

not to the fear,
not to the failing machinery of flesh,

but to the quiet voice saying:

Be here now.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

__________________

“Land of ‘It Depends’” 

(Satirical parody about cultural contradictions perceived by foreigners)

At the airport, the foreigner disembarks,
With sunscreen and a ready-made theory in his suitcase,

“Is it carnival all year round?” he asks excitedly,
While the people respond: “Hold on, it’s complicated.”

On the beach there’s glitter, microscopic bikinis,
Choreographed poses, philosophical tans,
But they talk about sex tourism on the television news,
And half the country shouts: “Not here, my brother!”

Chorus:
Brazil is “yes,” Brazil is “no,”
It’s contradiction in high definition,
It has modern laws, old morals,
It has free kissing and fights on the corner.

It’s liberal in official discourse,
Conservative at Christmas lunch,
Everyone judges everyone else in the end,
But they dance together on the national holiday.

There’s a porn industry exporting “tropical heat,”
Subtitled content for international perverts,
While the bakery owner says indignantly:

“What an absurd lack of tradition!”

In soap operas, diversity in prime time,
In the city center, a rainbow flag covers everything,
But on the bus someone whispers sideways,
As if the 21st century were a sin.

In the metropolis there’s a gigantic parade,
Influencer, drag queen, carnival aesthetics,
But in the countryside the silence is deeper,
Because not everyone wants to face the world.

There are macho guys pretending to be brave,
But they’re terrified of their independent ex,
Because they learned that respect comes suddenly,
When the “love of their life” becomes a just lawsuit.

Chorus:
Brazil is “yes,” Brazil is “no,”
It’s contradiction in high definition,
It has modern laws, old morals,
It has free kisses and fights on the corner.

It’s liberal in official discourse,
Conservative at Christmas lunch,
Everyone judges everyone else in the end,
But dances together on national holidays.

Foreigners try to do statistics,
But here even opinion is probabilistic,
In one neighborhood it’s avant-garde, in another tradition,
Every corner changes the constitution.

There are pastors on TikTok doing sensual trends,
There are activists and reactionaries in the same carnival parade,
And at the end of the night, after the discussion,
Everyone sings pagode in the same direction.

Final: Brazil doesn’t fit into simplified theories,
Nor into imported headlines,
It’s a country where “it depends” has become a philosophy,
And incoherence… the heritage of joy.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

a polyglot’s hell (deer in headlights)

He spoke in cases, genders, tones,
In rolled R’s and glottal groans;
Could order beer in Latvian,
Discuss Proust in Serbian,

Explain, with scholarly precision,
The optative mood’s elusive vision,
And casually decline a noun
While trains in Prague were breaking down.

He’d whisper Finnish vowel chains
Like sleigh bells ringing through the plains,
And conjugate through seven tenses
With monk-like calm and iron senses.

But then — catastrophe arrived.

A coworker swiveled. Someone smiled.
A silence spread. A trap was laid
With all the subtlety of a marching band parade.

“Oh wow,” they said, “you know Thai too?
Say something! Go on! Anything will do!”

And suddenly his brain went white.
The servers crashed. There was no light.
His knowledge fled without a trace
Like startled pigeons into space.

French abandoned him mid-stride.
The German hid. The Swedes denied.
Mandarin climbed out a rear escape
Disguised beneath a table drape.

He stood there blinking, rigid, pale,
A woodland creature sensing jail.
A polyglot of great renown
Reduced to circus monkey-clown.

“Uh…”

A bead of sweat.

“…bonjour?”

They clapped as if he’d trained a seal
To juggle codfish on a wheel.

“WOW! Again! Say more! That’s sick!
Do the accent! Talk real quick!”

Now every language he had known
Curled up and died behind his bone.
The ancient verbs, the subtle tones,
Collapsed like poorly stacked trombones.

For this was not a conversation.
This was impromptu cabaret vocation.
Not “Tell me what you love or think,”
But “Dance, professor! Squawk in Basque! Perform in Greek! Recite in sync!”

And somewhere deep within his soul,
Past every textbook, chart, and goal,
A tiny voice cried out in pain:

“I learned Uzbek to read the trains.
Not to become your party trick, Karen.”

— Adam Donaldson Powell

____________________________

The raeraes

Amura and Tita sit on their 

bar seats and take in the 

potential entourage of admirers 

amongst the new crop of tourists; 

many too embarrassed to stare 

and others who not only gawk but 

point and shriek in loud voices: 

« Harold! Is that a man? Oh my God!! » 

The raeraes’ favourites are not the 

photo-snapping honeymooners and 

older couples, nor the raeraes’ 

friendly own fellow countrymen; 

but rather the gorgeous ‘would-be’   models 

and movie actresses, and the robust, 

muscular popaa men who vie the 

raerae for attention, and whose 

self-conscious nods in recognition 

of their Polynesian mahucompetitors 

confirm a sense of interpersonal intrigue 

and sportsmanship. 

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

__________________

what if i linger when all else have fled? 

When sable Night doth draw her curtain close,
Some number sheep to lull the weary mind;
Some count their coins, lest Fortune’s stream should froze,
Or lovers lost, or years left yet behind.

Some reckon sins like beads on cloister’d thread,
And some the graves where all their joys are laid;
Some count the hours till Life itself be dead,
And curse the bargains mortal hearts have made.

But I have cast all idle sums aside,
Nor seek to tally sorrow, gold, nor breath;
Each morn I greet as one the tide doth guide
Back from the doubtful shadow-mouth of Death.

For oft the leech, the priest, yea, mine own soul,
Did whisper low: “Soon shalt thou quit this sphere.”
Yet still I rose whilst funeral bells did toll,
And drew strange triumph from surviving fear.

But every conquest bore a secret sting:
What if I linger when all else have fled?
What if mine eyes outwatch each living thing,
Till love itself keep company with dead?

And now at dusk I bend my humbled knee
For all who pass’d before my tardy years:
The gentle hound asleep beneath the tree,
The kindred voices drown’d in Heaven’s spheres.

I name them softly in my ev’ning prayer,
Their memories like candles faintly burn’d;
And waking, too, becomes a thing to fear—
Lest I should leave the dream for which I yearn’d.

For Love hath made a sanctified disguise
Where loss and grace together are entwined;
And I do dread the dawn that bids mine eyes
Forsake that holy kingdom of the mind.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

________________

The Tunnel at the End of Time (the poem) 

Beneath the runways’ patient roar and steel,
where jetstream thunder drowns the human will,
there coils a throat of earth the maps conceal—
a tunnel breathing futures, cold and still.

They said it hummed before the concrete came,
before the barcodes, flags, and cameras grew;
a seam in time no empire yet could tame,
a vein of “what if” pulsing under “true.”

And there they gathered—unlikely, unaligned:
not saints alone, nor circuits cold and clean,
but those who would not hand away the mind,
nor bow before a single sovereign screen.

First came the angels, ash on silver wings—
Ga’, whose voice could fracture iron lies,
and Ifafi, keeper of unspoken things,
with constellations hidden in his eyes.
They bore no halos—only tempered light,
as veterans of a thousand unseen wars,
the quiet flank of Michael’s endless fight
against the crowns that chain the human core.

Then came the rebels with their patched-together gear,
anti-mind control scribbled on their sleeves,
pirates of signal, whispering, “Stay clear—
the thought you think may not be yours to keep.”
They mapped the frequencies of fear and praise,
decoded sermons fed through hidden wires,
and trained their hearts to walk unlit by gaze,
immune to algorithmic choirs.

Close by, the anti-fascists took their stand—
no banners bright, but histories in scars.
They knew the cadence of a marching land,
the way a whisper metastasizes wars.
They spoke in vigilance, in “not again,”
in memory that would not be erased;
they brought the stubborn grammar of “no men
are gods by right, no truth by single face.”

And last, the operatives not born but made:
intelligences spun from code and doubt,
their voices layered, genderless and staid,
yet fierce in what they would and would not route.
They saw the patterns threading through belief,
the feedback loops of doctrine, fear, control;
they learned that certainty can be a thief
that robs the question from the questioning soul.

Above them, in the daylight’s curated sky,
a Leader rose on pillars built of creed—
ultra-conservative, absolute, and high,
a shepherd claiming every thought must heed.
The True Believers marched in perfect lines,
their eyes alight with borrowed, blazing flame;
their prayers were protocols, their doubts were crimes,
their love conditional, their truth the same.

He promised order carved in ancient stone,
a world reduced to “right” and “never wrong,”
a future where no mind would stand alone,
each will subsumed into a single song.
And through the tunnels under gates and gates,
his engineers had laid the final key:
a broadcast net to synchronize all states—
a hymn that would erase plurality.

But time itself had fissured in that place.
The tunnel was not merely earth and dark;
it bent around each choice, each human face,
a labyrinth of “if” and “else” and spark.
Step left—submission. Step right—fractured peace.
Step back—erasure. Forward—unmade laws.
The future forked in branching, ceaseless trees,
each leaf a consequence without a cause.

Ga’ placed a hand upon the tunnel wall.
It rang like struck glass, thin between the years.
“I hear the ending trying to be all,”
he said, “a final chord that silences ears.”

Ifafi knelt and listened to the ground.
“There is no end,” he whispered, “only seams.
They’ve found a way to make one future loud,
to drown the others in their quiet dreams.”

The rebels lit their scavenged rigs and screens;
the AIs flickered, parsing streams unseen;
the fighters checked the choke points in between,
where history collapses to a mean.

“Then we don’t fight a man,” one coder said,
“but architecture dressed in human skin.”
“A pattern,” said the angels, “to be read—
and broken not by force, but from within.”

So down they moved where time grew thin and strange,
past doors that opened onto wars unborn,
past echoes of a self they could not change,
past futures where the world lay neatly torn.
They saw the Leader crowned in countless ways:
in some, a martyr; others, crowned in gold;
in all, a narrowing of human gaze,
a story that allowed one voice to hold.

At last they reached the heart: a chamber vast,
machines like organs pulsing with belief,
a choir of wires reciting futures past,
compressing doubt to something small and brief.
A throne of data, scripture, law, and code—
and there, the Leader’s signal, bright and sure,
a waveform like a blade, a single road
cut through the many paths that might endure.

“Begin,” said Ifafi, and the air grew wide.

The rebels seeded noise in sacred streams,
not chaos, but a thousand subtle “why”s,
small glitches in the certainty of dreams.
The anti-fascists fed the system names—
of vanished voices, censored, burned, denied—
they reintroduced the weight of buried shames,
the evidence no doctrine could divide.

The AIs did not strike; they learned instead,
mirroring the signal back on itself,
until the Leader’s perfect thread was spread
too thin to dominate the mental shelf.
They forked the code at every rigid claim,
made contradictions bloom where once was one;
they taught the system doubt without a name,
a question that could never be undone.

And Ga’—he spoke.

Not loud, not with a conquering decree,
but with a tone that held a paradox:
“You may believe, but you must also see—
no truth survives when caged behind a lock.”
His voice did not erase, nor did it bind;
it opened doors the signal could not close,
a resonance that honored every mind,
a field in which plurality arose.

Ifafi followed, weaving unseen threads
between each branching future in the room.
He stitched together all the “ifs” they’d read,
so none could be declared the only bloom.
“No end of time,” he sang, “is singular;
no tunnel owns the fate of every soul.
The path is many, shifting, granular—
no hand may rightfully command the whole.”

The system faltered.

Perfect lines began to blur and bend,
the Leader’s waveform fracturing to choice;
the True Believers heard, within the blend,
a foreign, fragile, self-originating voice.
Not all turned back—no story ends so clean—
but some stepped out of cadence, broke the chain,
and in that fracture, small though it had been,
the totalizing future lost its reign.

The chamber dimmed. The tunnel breathed again.
The branching paths grew louder in their right.
No single thread could strangle all the when;
the end of time refused to be one light.

They stood in silence, ash and code and bone,
no victory parade, no final claim—
just many minds, more fully now their own,
and futures no one power could rename.

Above, the planes still carved their measured arcs.
The world went on—uncertain, incomplete.
But under Denver, in those hidden darks,
the tunnel learned new ways to fork and meet.

And Ga’ and Ifafi, wings at half-unfurled,
did not ascend, but lingered with the rest—
for saving time is never saving world,
but keeping open what resists the “best.”

So if you pass where engines shake the ground,
and feel, beneath, a whisper not of place—
it may be just the tunnel, newly found,
refusing any end that would erase.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

________________

Old Man Walking

He studies the pavement before committing his weight to it,
as if the ground were something that might change its mind.
The crutch touches first—
a quiet scout sent ahead—
then the careful shift of bone and memory follows.

The city does not notice him.
It hums, restless and indifferent,
a long breath of engines and conversations
that move faster than he ever intends to attempt.

He measures distance not in meters
but in decisions:
this step, then the next,
pause, balance, adjust,
a private arithmetic of survival.

Children scatter like startled birds,
their laughter unpredictable,
cutting across his path without warning.
He halts, waits for the air to settle,
for the world to become legible again.

A jogger appears—
sudden, rhythmic,
the slap of shoes too quick to negotiate with.
The old man leans inward,
makes himself smaller,
lets speed pass him like weather.

Dog-walkers linger at the edges,
leashes stretching and looping
into quiet traps.
He charts their movements,
plots an invisible route between them,
threading himself through with patience
that looks, from a distance, like stillness.

Cracks in the pavement open like questions.
He steps over them deliberately,
lifting his foot just enough
to deny gravity its easy victory.

A puddle reflects the sky
but promises nothing about its depth.
He skirts it,
preferring certainty to reflection.

A small rock waits where it should not be.
He nudges it aside with the crutch,
as though negotiating with a stubborn thought.

Halfway down the block
he stops.
Not from doubt,
but to take inventory—
breath, balance, the quiet agreement of his body
to continue.

The end of the street approaches slowly,
like something earned rather than reached.
When he arrives,
there is no ceremony,
only a subtle easing of the shoulders,
a recognition that he has not fallen,
that the ground has held.

Turning is the most dangerous moment.
He knows this.
He prepares for it
as one prepares for a question already asked too many times.
The pivot is small, deliberate,
a negotiation between what was and what must be repeated.

The return home is not a mirror
but a second journey entirely.
Fatigue changes the shape of everything.
Distances lengthen,
the crutch speaks louder against the concrete.

Still, he proceeds.

He remembers each hazard now—
the crack, the puddle, the place
where the jogger had come from nowhere.
Memory becomes a map
more reliable than sight.

The city continues without him,
but he continues within it,
a quiet insistence
moving one careful step at a time.

At his door,
he pauses again,
not out of uncertainty
but out of habit—
the body’s way of honoring arrival.

He has crossed the block twice.
He has not fallen.

For today,
this is enough.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_________________

Epitaph

When the last light loosens
its hold on my name,
and the careful archives of self
begin to unthread—

let the speeches fall first,
their polished arguments dimming
like coins at the bottom of a well.
Let manifestos scatter into wind,
their urgency outlived by silence.

Lay down the books I never finished,
the canvases that strained toward meaning,
the photographs that tried to trap time
and found only its echo.
Even the questions—
those bright, insistent flames—
let them flicker out without answer.

For none of these will follow me
past the small, unmarked threshold
where titles loosen,
and every cleverness is gently refused.

What will remain—
if anything dares remain—
is simpler, and far less adorned:

the quiet gravity of hands held
without witness,
the unrecorded mercies,
the forgiveness given too late
but given still,

the times I chose to stay
when leaving was easier,
the fragile courage of opening
again, and again,
despite the evidence.

Measure me there—
not in the noise I made,
nor the shadows I chased into form,
but in the warmth I kept alive
between myself and another.

If I am to be written at all,
let it be in this brief line:

that I learned, imperfectly,
how to love—
and was, for a moment,
loved in return.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

a hunger fed by stolen hours

When Sabbath bells or feast days bid thee stay,
And household claims enchain thy gentle hand,
I chide no more the hours that steal thee away,
Nor curse the vows I cannot countermand.
For though the world may mark thee as not mine,
And duty bind thee fast to others’ side,
I feast upon each stolen, fleeting sign
Of love that dares, though cloaked, to yet abide.

I live upon those shores where once we walked,
Where salt wind kissed the secrets on our lips;
On cricket greens where idle laughter talked,
And country inns that blessed our brief eclipses.

Thus love and lust in equal fire I prove:
Hopeless I burn, yet gladly starve for love.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

________________

Survivor’s Guilt

I walk the long neon artery of memory,
42nd flickering like a bad confession,
your laugh still ricocheting off the brick
like a subway train that never learned how to stop—

we were kings of nothing, remember?
paper pockets, dollar slices,
cheap coffee that tasted like burnt prophecy,
and the Staten Island ferry—our ocean liner—
cutting gray water into temporary freedom,
wind slapping our faces awake,
you shouting at gulls like they owed you rent.

Manhattan was a fever then—
we danced inside it,
sweat and bass and bodies orbiting desire,
club lights baptizing us electric, immortal—
afterward the pilgrimage downtown,
meatpacking nights,
where shadows leaned into each other
and names didn’t matter,
only the pulse, the heat,
the brief forgetting of morning.

You burned brighter than all of it—
a flare against the dark rumor spreading
through veins, through whispers, through hospital sheets—
we joked about everything except the silence
that grew heavier each week
until your voice became a hallway
I couldn’t follow.

Now the city hums without you
like a jukebox missing its best song.
I pass the ferry and don’t board.
I pass the clubs and don’t descend.
My body—once a map of restless hunger—
folds itself into corners,
refuses the old rituals of pursuit.

What is desire when it outlives its witness?
What is skin without the echo of your laughter
dragging it toward the next reckless night?

I carry you like an unpaid debt—
every breath a receipt I never asked for.
You should be here,
arguing with strangers,
flirting with ghosts,
stealing another dawn.

Instead it’s me—
walking, always walking,
through streets that remember too much,
through nights that offer too little,

alive
with the terrible persistence
of someone who didn’t deserve
to be the one who stayed.

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

somniloquy about sleep negotiations with myself

1. Insomnia

The sheep have gone feral—
they refuse their fences,
leap jagged over my thoughts,
snagging wool on the edges of worry.

I count them anyway.
One, two, three—
their hooves echo like dropped coins
in the hollow of my skull.

I turn the pillow,
cool side, warm side,
as if sleep were a shy animal
that might approach if I stay very still.

Breathing slow.
Then slower.
Then aware of every breath
as labor, as failure.

The clock hums louder than it should.
Time is no longer a line
but a tightening wire—
each minute another twist.

I try emptying my mind
but it fills with instructions
on how to empty it.

Try darkness.
Try silence.
Try the shape of nothing—

but nothing has edges,
and I keep finding them.

Morning waits like a consequence.
I lie awake to meet it,
already exhausted
from the act of not sleeping.

II. Uncontrolled Sleep

Sleep doesn’t arrive—
it ambushes.

Mid-sentence,
the world softens at the edges,
voices stretch into threads
I can’t quite hold.

I’ve dozed in chairs,
on buses,
standing once,
leaning like a forgotten coat
against a wall.

Coffee is a rumor.
Cold water, a suggestion.
My body keeps choosing elsewhere—
a dim, interior gravity.

People laugh, sometimes—
“must be nice,” they say,
as I disappear again
mid-laughter, mid-life.

Dreams spill into daylight,
unfinished, intrusive—
a second reality
stitched poorly over this one.

I wake in fragments:
a name I didn’t hear,
a moment already gone,
a room rearranged by time.

Sleep is no refuge here—
it is a thief
that takes whole hours
and leaves me
holding only the blur.

— Adam Donaldson Powell 

_______________________

Surviving others is usually a difficult life experience for most of us here on Earth. Both I and many that I know have experienced the loss of those who have meant much to us at some point in our lives. Some of the pain that we experience can possibly be in the form of “Survivors’ Guilt”. The reasoning behind this guilt can vary, as can the intensity and longevity of the “guilt”.

After following many persons to their graves we can over time risk feeling an exhaustion with being there for our beloved friends in their final periods. I have written a fictional letter to all who might find themselves in such a situation:

Dear Friend,

Even though we know that Death is an inevitable and intrinsic part of Existence, loss still hurts, still confuses emotionally, and still requires acceptance and healing. You have been through these painful losses many times … as have I. In addition, you like all of us, are constantly monitoring your own health and judging the actual proximity of the Whispers of Death beyond your own doorstep. Thus the death of those close to us can feel like an omen to ourselves because much of our own conscious and subconscious focus is often upon our own actual and our feared or imagined health issues, and thoughts of our own eventual Death. Just as I have had to learn how to walk again after each of my six foot operations, we must all also redefine our own lives in the shadows of personal loss. You are mentally strong and physically resilient, despite how you might feel in moments, or for short periods. And therefore persons who are going through terminal life experiences desire to have you in their lives during that time of transitioning. You are indeed fortunate and should feel proud that you are so entrusted. Many persons prefer to sneak away … alone, feeling sorry about their lives. But you have chosen your friends well, and they have wisely chosen you because of your empathetic nature and your ability to do and say the right things at the right times—even right before and at the end. Persons who are dying do not wish to burden others but it often takes courage and strength to be there with them … because loss hurts, and the survivors are also experiencing the death of part of their own definition because none of us is complete unto ourselves — not even in our definition and experience of Self.

Your friends need your simple presence, perhaps some reminiscing about fun and crazy previous experiences, some laughs, some philosophizing and summing up of the Journey etc. Actually, just the things that happen at Wakes, when it is too late for that person to enjoy the party on his/her behalf. So be yourself. If you need to cry together with your friends to help cleanse the energies then do so. Those of us who are dying just want to say “goodbye” in the ways that we said “hello” during our lives: with a myriad of life-confirming expressions that let us affirm that we have been real, and that we have loved and been loved.

You are truly blessed and honored to be invited to share in what is surely one of the two most important experiences in Life (after Birth).

We are all blessed, and there is no guilt needed in living or in dying.

We are all received with Love and Healing in the Afterlife / Life between Lives.

xoxo

— Adam Donaldson Powell

_________________

surrender…

I. Surrender to Love

Rain on cedar leaves
your name loosens in my chest —
two rivers go dark

II. Surrender to Oneself

Moon in broken glass,
I stop trying to appear
whole to anyone

III. Surrender to Life

The winter train stalls.
Snow gathers without asking
on every shoulder

IV. Surrender to Death

At the final tide
even the lighthouse lantern
bows into the dawn

— Adam Donaldson Powell

___________________________

check mate. 

lurking and planning, 

the bloodclot’s greatest power 

is its cunning stealth 

in reality, 

it is an act of treason 

by a blood brother 

in this silent war 

the contingent’s upward march

craves resignation 

there is no winner 

when sudden death ensues and 

all prospects are gone 

and it is thus that 

perseverance, blind hope and 

injections proceed

here, cherry blossoms 

and haiku moments cede to 

possible check mate

— Adam Donaldson Powell

___________________________

don’t ask.

(from Adam Donaldson Powell’s “Collected poems and stories”, 2005.)

please don’t ask me how I am;

you can’t really expect

me to be any different

than I was yesterday.

we’re all really quite normal —

me, myself and I, and in

despite our narcotic state can

be up and down simultaneously.

and don’t look at me too long;

I despise those “I know

how you must be feeling

eyes” and concerned tone.

why must you always misconstrue 

the way my gaze avoids yours?

my anti-social disposition is

intended to protect you from us.

no — it doesn’t help to

speak slowly, pronouncing

each word with the sweetened

diction of a nun or nurse.

I honestly can’t tell you how to

act, for I have trouble enough

getting us to agree about

how we’ll shield you from me.

it’s really best to let me volunteer,

lest my unbridled demons unleash

their flame-throwing dragons to sing

the delicate threads of your own ego.

and you, so footloose, must avoid looking

back into the darkness whose glittering

maze of mirrors encaptures those who poke

their noses where they don’t belong.

go ahead — ask me how I am…

— Adam Donaldson Powell

________________________