SPOTLIGHT -
August 30th 2025
Through poetry, explore the inspiring journey of Dr Benjamin Griffeth, a retired Navy veteran, as his colleague Dr Frank Clark reflects on his impactful legacy.
August 27th 2025
August 14th 2025
"Tonight their eyes meet with the spirit of sacred music..."
July 16th 2025
"He slaps a chest film on the light box and hooks a bleary intern: Tell me, doctor, what is the shape of this child’s ears?"
July 7th 2025
This heartfelt tribute poem to Dr Jessica Obeysekare celebrates her passion, empathy, and dedication in both life and academia.
'The One'
"...my eyes searching for the one skater in every crowd who glides graceful as a god, like my father years ago in his black leather racing skates..."
Composed by an African
"This letter I write from the heavenly ashes wishing that ebony and ivory twirl as one into the arms of divine humanity."
Midnight
"My black cat sprints through the kitchen door, a glassy-eyed cottontail hanging limp from his jaws."
"Thank You"
"Walk through the garden's dormant splendor. Say only, thank you."
Love After Love
"You will love again the stranger who was your self."
Degrees of Revealedness
How does one heal? Perhaps by "degrees of revealedness," according to a psychiatrist's reflections.
"How JFK Killed My Father"
"Hat factories closed quiet as prayer books, and loss lingered in my father’s guts like unswept garbage after a big parade..."
Thanksgiving Tree
A psychiatrist reflects on gratitude and Thanksgiving...
Poetic Canvas
A psychiatrist reflects on how much we all have in common and the need for healing...
The Gaza-Israel War: “A Major Poetic Emergency”
A poetic conversation among a Palestinian Israeli psychologist, an Italian Canadian psychiatrist, and a Canadian United Church Pastor in a time of war.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
"Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite."
How JFK Killed My Father
"It was a time when men wore fedoras banded on the crown, each band with a feather tucked into a bow, and inside, sweat bands carved from calf skins with their sweet smell of animal and earth."
I Knew a Woman
"Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek)."
Positively Haiku: Illustrated Affirmations in 17 Syllables
This book offers positivity via a unique form of poetry.
Land Ho
"I know I have the blood of survivors coursing through my veins; I know the lament of our loss must warm us again and again down in the belly of the whale..."
Lane Closure
A psychiatrist reflects on the latest shootings.
Evening Hawk
"His wing Scythes down another day, his motion Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear The crashless fall of stalks of Time."
Sleight of Hand
"Oh for a stronger magic, that I could wave my arms and reach deep inside my white coat pocket..."
Kansas, 4AM
"The sounds of the world at this late hour sadden you, but then enters the rain, hastening down, the rain that wants to touch everything and almost does."
I Sit and Sew
"My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams..."
Blue Fortitude
A psychiatrist reflects on blue fortitude as he visits the Columbine Memorial.
"Sleight of Hand"
"Oh for a stronger magic, that I could wave my arms and reach deep inside my white coat pocket, the mass vanished..."
We Lived Happily During the War
"And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough..."
Used Book
"What luck—an open bookstore up ahead..."
PTSD
"For months she has dreamed in red..."
The “Change” in Climate Change
"Tornado or torbellino or something else, I ask her about the valley’s strange wind. And she laughs, says that she was calling to ask me the same thing."
How to Triumph Like a Girl
"As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood."
"PTSD"
"Eyes locked on the flat-lined monitor, she hears the last drop gurgle, the team quiet and calm in a lake of blood."
Undeniable
A psychiatrist has an undeniable response to the Jacksonville shooting.
A Small Needful Fact
"...he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow..."