Words & Music

by Mike Power

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  • Memorial – Ruth Detjen

    I recently went to a memorial service for the mother of a friend. You can tell a lot about a person by the things people say about them when they’re not around, and by the memories of the people who love her. They talked about strawberry shortcake and Volkswagens; falling trees and fireworks; telephone calls Read more

  • Like the back of my hand

    I We came from the place where they mold your dreams into memories that do not fade. We walked along the river that flows both ways until the machine ran out on us and the molten rocks flowed down the hills. We talked with the man who taught one of us how to swim and Read more

  • James Baldwin and the Art of Empathy

    We live in an age of short attention spans and sound bytes, which would seem to suggest shallow imaginations but it might signify something very different: an increased ability to absorb more information in less time. One example of this optimistic interpretation is the fact that we are living in a golden age of poetry. Read more

  • I Have To Say

    This song, like John Lennon’s Woman, is addressed both to the specific woman I’ve built my life around, and to all individuals of her gender. This feels like a moment for me to be quiet and do some listening. I’ve already heard everything I Have To Say. In another similarity with Beatle John, my compositions Read more

  • The name for that cohesive force

    Scientists tell us that, without the presence of the cohesive force amongst the atoms that comprise this globe of ours, it would crumble to pieces and we would cease to exist; and even as there is cohesive force in blind matter, so must there be in all things animate, and the name for that cohesive Read more

  • The Old World

    A young person can easily see the faults in the old world that is decaying and dying all around them, and recognize the foolishness of old people who are trying to keep it alive artificially. What they can’t see, until they are older, if even then, is that their fresh new world is decaying too, Read more