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on Christmas eve

On By ©️K.T. 2025In anthropocene, apartheid, birds, Capitalism, Chicago, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Cities, december, earthlings, fauna, flora, kin, Lament, Lamentations, Poem, poetry, Proof of Life, son, wildlife1 Comment

i traveled a river of concrete in a machine,
you traveled an ocean of air in a machine,
babies crying, inconsolably, you said
i said, eustachean tubes aren’t meant for 30,000 feet.

i am not meant for this,
neither are you,
neither are they.

not the opposite of joy
on Christmas eve
but the false pursuit of it
whatever is actually contrary to it
even if we don’t know it when we see it.
even if we refuse to know it when we see it.

if i allow myself to cry, he will see it on my face.

Continue reading “on Christmas eve” →
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Dickensian Dollar Store Christmas

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Capitalism, Chicago, Christmas, Cities, City of Chicago, december, Essay, from the inner city to outer rural, Gold, inner city, kinship, Lent, Portage Park, UrbanLeave a comment

a version of this essay was first published December 8, 2015

“Christmas is coming, 
the goose is getting fat, 
please put a penny in the old man's hat, 
if you haven't got a penny, 
then, a half-penny will do, 
if you haven't got a half-penny, 
then God bless you.”

I went to the nearest Dollar Store to buy old-fashioned, stringy, silver tinsel for our christmas tree.

All that glitters is not silver or gold, is never ever golden, whether you buy your pretty ornaments or wrapping paper for a buck – or two at Dollar Tree, Walmart, Target, Macy’s or Saks for $5, $10, $30 or $50. The only difference is the retailer’s profit margin — very rarely is there a difference in quality when it comes to seasonal items, disposable items and sundries.

The season of peace and beauty feels very false once you know and remember to never forget that all those beautiful ornaments and decorations adorning almost every American home, restaurant or holiday venue are made by women, children, or men in sweatshops who are breathing in lead dust, paint fumes, plastic glitter, chemicals and pigments often for less than $30 per 12-hour shift; all that beautiful crap then warehoused, shipped, stocked and sold by non-living-wage, multi-job workers in the U.S.

Yet, while I’m there roaming the aisles or in the long line to check-out, I feel an overwhelming sense of community with my fellow city dwellers — the shoppers, the store’s workers and with all the workers of the World — particularly those in Yiwu, Zhezhang, China who are mass-producing a vast majority of all of this shit.

silver tinsel, aka Icicles,
ironically & hilariously,
still made in the USA!

I also feel an overwhelming revulsion of the systems of ‘growth’ and development: capitalism, consumerism, and human and natural resource “management” which are uniquely undeniable in the fluorescent, depressive uniformity of the minimally staffed chaos found in a busy, urban dollar store,

Continue reading “Dickensian Dollar Store Christmas” →
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House and Lineage of Mary

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Christ, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christos, Gnosis, Gnostic, Mary, Mother, Mother God, MotherhoodLeave a comment 
“We are all called to be mothers of God, for God is always waiting to be born.”

— Meister Eckhart, 13th century German mystic
madonna & child stained glass
2013, Portage Park, Chicago
The Christmas narrative speaks to us beyond a phenomenal story about Mary and the Baby Jesus. It tells us about an inbreak of God's consciousness into the world. Inbreaks of the Divine require a flexible mind capable of letting go of every acquired concept of God. God gnosis is quite different from religious, historical, and any other kind of knowledge. The first emerges from within, throwing open our inner gates; the latter comes from without. 

Tau +Rosamonde Ikshvàku Miller+, 2012
Continue reading “House and Lineage of Mary” →
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December 23rd, of the year of great loss, 2023

On By ©️K.T. 2025In PoemLeave a comment

On the eve of Christmas Eve, whether Jesus the Christ be a historical human being or mythical figure doesn’t matter — what we know about Jesus of the Gospels, canonized and gnostic is that [t]he[y] would abhor and denounce, the United States and State of Israel with their Temples and Capitols and Pentagons full of woeful Pharisee hypocrites, money-changers and weapons-makers.

To those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, witness and listen:

May the Christ within you, awaken, then enrage and enflame your hearts with a love for all who merely want to live in peace upon and with the Earth.

We are all potential Christs.

The birth, transfiguration, death and resurrection was only ever that of the human heart — and is a completely possible and intentional evolution —not one aquired through a miraculous birth or by divine intercession, painful sacrifice or a physical resurrection:

to love the Earth and all Life upon it — in every manger, crib, burrow, nest, pasture, estuary or den.

Everyone knows universally exactly what universal Love means.

Everyone knows what Love is no matter how much they try and complicate and qualify its clear and simple tenets:

Love is respect, care, compassion, equity, equality, freedom, justice, mercy and dignity.

And, that on Day 78 of Israel’s ongoing genocide of the People of Palestine and decimation of Gaza for the further theft of Palestinian land for Western corporations’ gas leases and a Zionist mono-ethno-state,

I again rebuke the State of Israel and the United States government.

Peace be unto a Free Palestine!
Peace be unto a Free Congo!

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residuum

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Earthling, ki, kin, Life and Death, nature, Poem, poetry, reciprocity, Survival, symbiosity, wildlife, WinterLeave a comment
“The Distances They Keep”, Howard Nemerov, the blue swallows, 1967

this is no time
to evict
centipedes,
spiders,
the occasional, lone
boxelder bug,
dozens of out-of-season ladybird beetles
or
the almost-always odorless stinkbugs

from
our houses

to do so now means certain death, outside

Continue reading “residuum” →
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With a tail as big as a kite. With a tail as big as a kite.

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Animals, Beauty, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Death, Funerary, Life and Death, Poem, poeme, poetry, spirit, spirits, Survival, Uncategorized, WinterLeave a comment

She strained her eyes
what is that dark lump
in the road
traveling into my throat

Out she went
sighting the black beauty
from fifty paces
nearer, the bright blood
pooling beneath ki’s face

Did he even try to brake
or swerve?
“no”, the tracks and trees say

Maybe the driver didn’t see
the pitch black, moving body
against the snowy white, otherwise red dirt road?

Maybe ki darted out,
in front of the royal blue truck
a truck fit for a rural king
[doubt of the beneficent on Christmas]

machines
everywhere
machines

carssawsgunsplowsshipsplanesmillstractorsthrowersdozerstruckscombines
boatsturbinesrigsdredgerstrainsbargesroadsrailharborspipeshousesbridges
wellshighwayssewersstructuresquarriesreactorspowerlinesstreetslotsculde
sacsfencessatelliteslockscelltowerssignsculvertswallsdockslandfillsdams

she gently pincers the end of ki’s gorgeous black tail
gingerly pulling kin off the road
redundantly committing ki’s spirit
to the universe, aloud
with apologies for humankind, silently

purposefully committing kin’s body
to a safer spot
for mourning
and carrion feast

Ki’s body was unexpectedly heavy
full of walnuts and seeds
fat and strong for a long winter ahead
so alive just minutes ago, I saw out the window

I’m sorry
I’m sorry
for me
for my kind
for our machines
for our structures
for our carelessness
for our selfishness
for all this,
engineered, manufactured, destroyed

the falling snow christens quick

she wanted to go inside
and sob
selfishly,
because the possibility
of an aberrantly painless holyday
ceased with the dead black squirrel Continue reading “With a tail as big as a kite. With a tail as big as a kite.” →

a Divine Conception in the Womb of the Soul

On By ©️K.T. 2025In Advent, Alchemy, Birth, birthday, Christ, christ consciousness, Christmas, Christos, divinity, Gnosis, Gnostic, maternity, Meister Eckhart, Mother, Mother God, mystic, Pneumatic, the divineLeave a comment

Words of Meister Eckhart
from sermons 1-3

“There is a huge silence
inside each of us
that beckons us into itself,
and the recovery of our own silence
can begin to teach us
the language of heaven.

What good is it to me
that Mary gave birth to [the Son of] God
fourteen hundred years ago
if I do not also give birth
to [the Son of] God?

We are all meant to be
mothers of God,
for God is always needing to be born.

Cherish in yourself the birth of God.

In this Birth, you partake
in the divine stream.
Christ is conceived in your core,
your inmost recess,
where no idea ever glowed.

In this Birth, God pours into you,
and the light at the core of your soul
grows so strong, it spills out.
The light overflows into your body,
which becomes radiant with it.

For the eternal Birth,
which occurred at one point in time,
occurs every day
in the inmost core
of the soul. ”

Continue reading “a Divine Conception in the Womb of the Soul” →

americans of empathetic, inclusive and courageous consciousness:

On By ©️K.T. 2025In anti-fascism, antifa, Authoritarian, Crone Consciousness, human being, Liberalism, liberals, Liberation, Life and Death, The Constitution, United States of America, Zone of InterestLeave a comment

Stop focusing your energy

on the effectively useless,

always selective,

always tenuous,

always exclusive,

always revocable,

First Amendment,

right now.

right fucking now.

Continue reading “americans of empathetic, inclusive and courageous consciousness:” →

that’s all i know

On By ©️K.T. 2025In anthropocene, cancer, Capitalism, climate, Colonization, Congo, Death, dying, Earth, earthlings, ecocide, Existence, Fascism, Gaza, Genocide, Hell, kill lists, Liberation, Life, Life and Death, neoliberalism, Palestine, Poem, poetry, Politics, Sudan, true things, War, Zone of InterestLeave a comment
a companion truths poem to, and
influenced in part by, this most beautiful
dreamt song and these sweetly sung truths,
by Rodney Crowell.

my mother turned 75 years-old yesterday
and that’s all i know,
about her
anymore

Continue reading “that’s all i know” →

august

On By ©️K.T. 2025In August, death and other endings, phenology, Poem, poetry, starling, timeLeave a comment

say something about August.

well,

it sweats and sticks
then is gone too quick
just when you begin to tolerate it;

if Sunday Scaries were 31 days in a row;

a sudden carpeting of yellow leaves on green grass — current fall rate: 1 leaf per minute —my instrumentation: a pair of 5+decades-old eyes;

there will be no prolific fruiting on the two black walnut trees this year — and i am guilty with a schaudenfreude regarding the red squirrels;

the starlings stack the power lines and camouflage themselves in the green tree tops
this, a rest stop in their annual migration

those synchronized swimmers of atmosphere,
a singular heartbeat, a murmuration, of hundreds of individuals, these beautiful communists.

i have become invested with the observation and documentation of phenology:

i expected them this week.

Continue reading “august” →

have mercy.

On By ©️K.T. 2025In agraria, barn swallows, birds, Death, dirt road chronicles, dying, Earthling, fauna, Free Palestine, Funerary, funerary portraiture, Gaza, Genocide, holocaust, july, kill lists, kin, Life and Death, maternity, mortality, Mother, Mother God, Motherhood, ornithology, outer rural, Palestine, ruralia, threshold, wildlife, ZionismLeave a comment

in mid-July, the summer-resident barn swallows who had successfully raised and launched four fledglings by June 23rd, 2025, attempted to raise a second brood;

while i am not absolutely sure if it was the same set of parents or another in the barn swallow community that utilized the nest — as there is a collective of more than a dozen swallows that visits and assists in feeding sometimes too — it is most likely they are the same parent pair;

this is the second summer the barn swallows have nested here in my barn — using last year’s well-constructed nest which they attached to one of the joists like a balcony cantilevered on a Chicago highrise;

i began leaving the overhead barn door open when i first noticed them circling and investigating the barn a few years back; and i was thrilled last year when they began construction of their nest — they were so very welcomed and wanted here — i now know to leave the barn door raised from mid May through July to give them access.

the first brood of four swallows,
not quite fledged, but stretching their wings in the safety of the barn, June 2025
Continue reading “have mercy.” →

as the crow flies, as the apple falls.

On By ©️K.T. 2025In night, Poem, poetryLeave a comment

i watched Aftersun,

making my way thru films, on lists, i’ve apparently missed


when it ended,
it was 12:34 am
as i glanced at the clock on the stove;
and went outside
to sit on the dark stoop and cry
and then, said aloud,


“i am not okay”,

and i may never be, again;

i saw, i am more like my father,

than my mother,

than i knew, than i ever thought,

and that, is stunning, in itself ///

that he, was more the human being, of the two, than her.

Continue reading “as the crow flies, as the apple falls.” →