Poetry

Always at the Crossroads: Language, Power, and the Murder of Renee Good

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Original artwork (No AI) titled, Crossroads

We are always at the crossroads.

Language is powerful.

This week, Renee Good was murdered.

And thus, a torrent of character assassination, false justifications, and endless exaggerations spew from the really real reels of the sacred boxes we carry close to our hearts.

Language is powerful.

The party seeks to unmake her, to strip her of her dignity and castigate her in a kangaroo court of delusional opinion.

Language is powerful.

So we must say, this week, Renee Good was murdered.

This. Was. Murder.

Every angle captured by cameras shows a man who wasn’t afraid as fired his firearm into an unarmed woman.

Language is powerful.

And so we must name the murderer.

Jonathon Ross Failed to follow training, Failed to follow procedure, Failed to deescalate, and his final Failure was, after firing the fatal shot into the fleeing mother, his camera on, still recording he called her, a fucking bitch.

“He was sensitive,” Vance says with his slick smile, “He was sensitive, so cut him some slack.”

There is no justification for what happened,

Unless you remember, that violence is not about solutions, it’s about consolidating power.

Renee Good’s murder happened at the crossroads.

Violence is about power.

It is about silencing dissent through coercive and corrosive means. Violence consumes the soul.

Renee Good’s murder happened at the crossroads.

Where we have sold the soul of this country. We have worshipped the great god of greed, and reveled in our luxuries, our convenience,

Always chasing the Joneses.

This week, many opened their eyes to see themselves standing at the crossroads.

Those of us who have studied our ancestors, have seen what’s happening for some time. We have seen a criminal climb his way to power, and upend the rule of law. We’ve been living in a terrible miasma of apathy and fear, crawling on our bellies face down in muck so muddy our vision was murky.

And now, this week, we have looked up. And we see the crossroads with our own eyes.

Knowing, we have crossed the threshold into fascism.

Now, no one is safe. There is no far off corner in rural America exempt from tyranny. All streets are now killing grounds, a place where rituals of blood and violence feed the belly of the tyrant so that he may grow gluttonous feasting on our freedom.

But,

We get to choose the story we tell our descendants.

We can tell them, how we stood there, blinking, hesitant, belly up with arms, eager for shackles, while some sneak around sipping the champagne of tyranny with gleeful smiles.

Or,

We can tell the tail of how, at the twilight’s last gleaming, we stood and faced one another, and we found a way to fight back.

We are always at a crossroads.

All My Books Are Free Until March 8th 2025!!!

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You read that right. Everything I’ve published since 2018 is free for the next seven days on Smashwords. Trying to kick your amazon habit lately? Well, you can buy all of my books on Smashwords instead… or rather, just add them to your library because they are totally free. Even if you already have copies elsewhere, why not pick them up on a different service?


You can find them here at Smashwords!

Falk’s Karma (Substack Short Story)

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Happy New Year!

Recently, I completed a short narrative lyrical poem titled Falk’s Karma. This was recently submitted to a publisher so I can’t publish the thing out in the world on my website. However, I can provided an advance review copy for my wonderful paid subscribers, all of whom I treasure.

As to that, It seems likely this year I will have a lot of finished works. I’ve been writing 1000 words a day for almost two full years now without missing a single day, and what it’s yielded is a large chunk of a book series and quite a few shorts, essays and poems. So I am going to do my best to get as much up here first to paid subscribers and then out into the world later. I’m excited for you to read some of my latest shorts and the forthcoming novel, Shades and Shapes in the Dark and it’s sequel, Through an Endless Darkness Gleaming.

Blurb for Falk’s Karma:


Shipwrecked and trapped on an island full of hungry banshees, Falk stumbles upon a cabin and takes refugee. But once he arrives, two mysterious strangers appear at his door and compel him to make a choice that will change his life forever.

From https://www.pexels.com/photo/tranquil-snowy-forest-path-in-winter-30220259/

Falk’s Karma

Once an older man named Falk,

Ordinary and plain,

Sought shelter in a cabin, in the forest, in the rain.

Alone, he was for miles wide.

Lost, with no one to see,

So strange than a cabin here,

in the land of frosts and banshees.

A sailor marooned upon the shore,

With luck turned in a storm,

Falk wandered through the forest,

seeking to get warm.

He knew the island he tread upon

From darkest lore and tale,

When the rain changed to ice,

The banshees traced your trail.

If you’d like to read the rest, head over to my substack and become a paid subscriber. There you can access other published short stories, and soon full novels for $5 a month.

A Poem from “Shades and Shapes in the Dark” Chapter 10: The Shadow of Samhain

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Preorder for my novel, Shades and Shapes in the Dark will begin soon! The book is headed off to the editor next week. The nove is a dark fantasy/horror story set beginning in the 90s and span 40 years. The story is about a dark force, that follows the main character Clarissa through her life, and how she must learn to fight back, ultimately drawing on ancient magic and wisdom. The first book begins when she is only 9 years old, and encounters the shadowlike creature for the first time.

Each chapter in the novel has a poem that opens the piece. Sometimes this poem is something to do with the character, sometimes narrative information for the reader, sometimes foreshadowing, and sometimes it includes a bit of the lore of the world.

Chapter 10 is titled: The Shadow of Samhain. It takes place on Halloween and, of course, since it’s the season, I thought I would share that opening poem.

The Shadow of Samhain

Come all ye, gathering shades,
The time of Samhain is at hand,
We will rise to rot and scatter,
Our blight across the land.

For the first of us comes at witching hour,
To seek his contractual prize,
Lust for power brings him strength,
With every victim’s demise

But a bargain struck will not go unpaid,
A boon of power is owed,
It matters not who is struck down,
Nor the depth and breadth of your woe

More news of the novel, including the release date and more is just around the corner!

It’s All Relative (Anthropological Spoken Word)

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For the last ten years I’ve been teaching college courses in Anthropology and Geography. But last month I signed on to join Teach for America where I will transition into teaching middle school or high school. Sometimes at the end of the semester I would recite this poem for students, to try and capture everything we’ve learned in the entire term. Also, I wrote this about two years ago, and I realized recently that I never actually posted it even though it’s one of my favorite pieces that I’ve written.

This spoken word poem is inspired by the core message of Anthropology so artfully put by Horace Minor many years ago. he said that anthropology is, “Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.”
This poem also appears in my book, A Luminous Liminality: A Collection of Poetry and Art

It’s All Relative

It’s all about relations,

No I don’t mean sexual intercourse,

I mean how people build their foundations

How they relate to causation, or build a nation

And what they consider freedom and liberation

The tracks of humanity don’t just stop at one station

The imagination is filled with endless destinations

Everyone has hopes and dreams, sorrows and frustrations

Everyone wants to experience the sensation of cessation of suffering and damnation

Options

We are a range of cultural options

Our choices are the result of a kind of cultural adoption

Humans are a wonder to be sure

We explore, go on tour, only to identify what we consider pure and impure

We fight wars because we are insecure, but wait there’s so much more.

For every detour we endure, we can also find the cure

For our madness

For every act of hate, there one of love pushing back against the sadness

The thoughts people carry are the result of causes and conditions

A steady diet of enculturation a kind of cultural brain nutrition

Of what’s clean and dirty, right and wrong

How best to gather food or sing a song

How to unify a community and get along

Culture is about adapting and understanding where you belong

So much of it is arbitrary but we claim tradition is important because it has. Gone. On. So. Long.

But tradition is selection of past perceptions

Rooted in imagined past and cultural objections

There’s nothing inevitable about the paths we choose

The things we keep, the things we loose,

Or how we use and abuse one another

When we forget that all beings have once been our mothers

And we yell and scream and blame one other.

For our problems

And so it’s relative, the way we know

Our goals, dreams, aspirations, the places that we go

Flow below the assumptions and you will find a place to grow

But take it slow.

Because if you think you know,

You’re wrong.

Relativism is a practice,

lifelong

And that beginners mind, keeps you from getting too headstrong

Don’t assume right or wrong

Just be curious, instead of furious.

Cultural relativism is poison, a disease?

Oh please, I’ve got no interest to appease

The keyboard warriors whose agenda is to throw feces

Like our primate cousins…

Relativism doesn’t mean you allow ignorance to thrive,

It means you contrive to understand what it means to be human and alive

The things we do to survive and strive for

Opens the doors to more

Possibilities

Because every culture is a library of wonder

They all have lessons and wisdom bright with lightning and thunder

So shut up,

listen,

and put down your hands

You don’t have to like, but you should try to understand

American Fundamentalism (Poetry)

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American Fundamentalism

Capitalism is a religion,

Economists are the priests,

And until you realize that these systems and money are imaginary, (gold standard or no)

The suffering will never cease.

Debt is our sin,

Our hearts are weighed and tried,

And cast into hell and homelessness,

If our monthly payments backslide.

Our credit scores the earned merit,

Pay tribute to the gods,

To the great titans of banking,

Bailed out in 2008 after committing forgery and fraud.

The stock market is the holy temple,

Where the tendrils of power hoard and hide,

Yet no commodities can be found within,

Just devotees chanting the holy mysteries inside?

And Let us pray to management,

The ones holding land in holy trust

To dole it out to those with the most merit,

Leaving most the parishioner’s with wind and dust

Capitalism is our religion,

The one true American faith,

It is in the market we trust,

Not a deity, but a wraith

Growth (Spoken Word Poem)

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Fresh this morning at the end of February of 2024, here is a piece of spoken word poetry titled, Growth. Text is below the video.

@authormichaelkilman

A spoken word poem titled Growth #spokenpoetry #spokenword #alliteration #growth #growthmindset #technology #poetry #poet #authorsoftiktok #authormichaelkilman

♬ original sound – Michael Kilman

Growth

Organic,

Certified fresh on grocery store shelves,

Shopping in civility,

In and out like seashells,

On sea shores with shifting tides,

Circulating trash.

There,

Standing over there,

Something untenable,

Titanic,

Trembling walls of plastic,

Like tumors,

Like free trade,

Growing beyond the boundaries of what was always bountiful.

Circulating wealth into the center,

But consecrating that concentration cannot hold,

Beyond borders,

Beyond beauty,

Creeping towards climaxes of cataclysm, catastrophe,

Coffins at higher costs.     

Then,

Virtual panoramas rise,

Hiding villainous views.

Prisons of perspective,

Pluralities of Plutocracies,  

Lending to lingering hours,

 days, weeks, months, years,

of long, lonely lifetimes.  

A gaping maw of similarity,

Simulations without suspense of belief in the simulacra.

Marvels generated in single seconds,

For sensual,

Bread and circuses.

Divide and conquer,

Squabble and squander,

The grass is green of yonder,

Keeping you somber,

Silent, with overtly simple explanations,

Of Black and White thinking.

So you can,

Demonstrate your diligence.

Your dedication, and deliberate reconstruction,

Of that simulation,

Of that model,

Of the other,

So that,

Nothing ever grows in you.

Because,

Your certainty shopping at certified organic store shelves,

Is the only ritual you need.

Walking the World (Poem)

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Sometimes I think about why I became an anthropologist, about what my goals in the profession were. I think about what I’ve done with my life and what I want to do. So I guess, here’s what I have to say.

I took this photo in Oregon in May of 2022.

Walking the World

I have dreams of walking the world,

And resting in the arms of it’s people,

To sit and sip their hearts desires,

To journey through every kind of steeple.

I have dreams of walking the world,

To touch all it’s natural wonders,

To walk through every stormy night,

My path illuminated by lightning and thunder.

I have dreams of walking the world,

Even if it means my death,

For what better way to end your life,

By learning and loving with every breath.

I have dreams of walking the world,

And discovering all the ways I am wrong,

To learn of all my weaknesses and limitations,

Because it is the whole world to which we belong.  

Not Anywhere At All… (Poetry)

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You always hear… wherever you go there you are. But who are you?

Not anywhere at all…


They say, Wherever you go, there you are

But I am no where to be found

I circle round all day looking

And find nothing even remotely profound

The when of me isn’t looking much better

For I will die again soon

But if I am willing to die every single moment

I can dance with the spirit of the moon

The urge to transform I cannot suppress

Nor is it a journey light of heart

To delve deep into myself in all it’s intimacy

Is to tear my ego apart

Wherever I go is not where I will be

But a moment just past recognition

I slip away so suddenly

Beyond the unknown and into a permanent state of transition

I cannot grasp the formless  

And certainly not my mind

For I am not an individual  

At least, nothing so easily defined  

 It turns out I am made from simple things

Contexts and conditions of endless configurations

To know them well is to know the source of all things

And get closer to some kind of liberation

It requires a little madness to begin

To start the process going

So I will let go of the ways I think and feel

And consider another way of knowing  

What Do You Know?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about self-honesty lately. I’ve had more than a few hiccups in my life recently and somehow, I seem to be okay with it all. That doesn’t mean there aren’t heavy moments or difficulty or struggle… but it’s alright.

I’ve found so much peace and just letting my creativity flow. Here is one such flow.

What Do You Know?

You don’t really know yourself.                                                              None of us do….

How could we?

We are not individuals.

We are not a simple narrative of birth to death.

There is no line that we walk,

even if we consider the m~e~a~n~d~e~r~I~n~g~ paths that hold our

[Traces…]

We Walk…………… Forward

                                                                                                                    drawkcaB ……………klaw eW

We die many times in a single life.

Have you ever tried to count your deaths in this cycle?

Bardo is forever.

Because

We are a profound amalgamation

of the connections,

the environments,

the knowledge,

the experiences,

we have encountered.

It is not possible to untangle yourself so completely that you can measure the shape and structure of

who

you

are.

Yet, we must try.

There is no more noble a pursuit then to

Examine yourself with honesty and intimacy.

Love

The

Fact

Finding

Mission Within

And you will find the whole universe mirrored.

Do not try to grasp at concepts

You are water,

Ever flowing,

Ever Changing

A closed fist can never hold water for long

Know thyself?

No!

There is no end to self-knowledge

So BE in a relationship with yourself

Dance with the Depths,                  The Shadows,

The Desires,                                              The Light,

And move to the rhythm of laughter.

Tenderness dear one…

Always Tenderness

Because self-honesty…

Though necessary…

Tangles with turmoil

And Temper Tantrums

But Persist in your pursuit

For we need a true communion of the heart