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Fragments of Frost and Fire - Episode 14 - Genocide Of The Poor

Like Gaza, the acts of genocide are hidden beneath the manufactured reality we are presented with, but you don't need to kill with guns and bombs when you can starve people out, deny them medicine, and make their very existence illegal. The methods differ, but the systematic elimination remains the same—dressed up as urban planning, healthcare policy, and law and order.  Genocide Of The Poor They draw the lines like battle plans in red ink on city maps, mark neighborhoods for "renewal" and "development," while sirens wail through streets that once held families now scattered like autumn leaves before bulldozers. The medicine costs more than rent, the rent costs more than wages, the wages buy less than silence from those who make the rules, and food cost prayers and tears, no money to buy it.   Buses roll through midnight streets carrying the displaced to nowhere— one-way tickets to forgotten places where the forgotten go to disappear....
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Fragments of Frost and Fire - Episode 13 - Walk-On-By Society

 Sometimes a passing phrase cuts through the noise of the day and stays with you. I recently came across a video shared by @modelstrangers on Threads , where a man—soft-spoken but resolute—spoke about the loneliness we often feel even when surrounded by millions, and the deep importance of respecting every person, no matter their role in society. His words reminded me of how easy it is to walk past others without truly seeing them. And how powerful it can be when we choose to see. This poem was born from that moment of reflection. Walk-On-By Society Millions of footsteps echo, side by side, but hearts pass like shadows— unseen, untouched, eyes fixed forward, never meeting yours. In the crowd, you could scream, and still be an empty whisper. P hoto by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz : https://www.pexels.com/photo/elderly-man-with-a-broom-and-a-dustpan-19408637/ This is a walk-on-by world, where silence is safer than kindness, where pain is private and everyone is "fine." But listen— n...

Fragments of Frost and Fire - Episode 12 - How That Worked Out.

In a world unraveling—from genocide in Gaza to war in Ukraine and Congo, from rising fascism to ecological collapse—many choose silence, hoping distance will spare them. But silence is not neutral. It is not protection. This poem is a reflection on complicity, comfort, and the cost of staying quiet while the world burns. How That Worked Out —a poem for the age of excuses The children of Gaza do not dream of war, but they wake beneath it, wrapped in dust and grief and headlines written by cowards. In Congo, the river carries the weight of our luxury— blood-colored cobalt, futures mined by hands too small for the machines they power. And still, the world scrolls, safe in its distance, safe in its silence. The forest doesn’t argue with the axe. The ocean doesn’t plead with the net. They remain silent, wanting only to live— and they die anyway. Those who say silence protects you should ask the land how that worked out. Photo by Anderson Santos: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-doing-...

Stone and Signal - Episode 4: Generation Wild

  Welcome back to Stone and Signal.  I am excited about this episode.  I hope you enjoy it. The Podcast Links Episode 4 on Substack (NEW) Edpisode 4 on YouTube Episode 4 on Spotify The Essay The Transcript Companion Essay on Substack (NEW) - What Are We Really Afraid of?  What Grows Beyond Us We are not the first generation to fear for the future, but we may be the last with the luxury of treating that fear as theoretical. The young know this. They are not confused by the world’s contradictions—they were born into them. And still, they rise. Across oceans and borders, classrooms, streets and digital landscapes, youth are reimagining what it means to lead. Not in the way power is traditionally defined—through hierarchy, charisma, or capital—but in the way that ecosystems organize themselves: adaptively, relationally, with purpose rooted in survival and care. Their leadership is not a posture. It’s a pulse. We often speak of empowering young people as if power is a ...

Stone and Signal - Episode 3: The Fire and the Frost

Welcome back to Stone and Signal.  If you haven't heard the first episode yet you can find information on Episdoe 1  here  and Episode 2 here . The Podcast Links Edpisode 3 on YouTube Episode 3 on Spotify The Essay The Transcript  What Doesn’t Scale Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-boat-with-oars-on-both-side-during-golden-hour-panoramic-photography-33582/ We’ve built a culture obsessed with scale. If something can’t be made faster, bigger, more efficient, it’s dismissed as quaint—or worse, irrelevant. We praise the viral, the exponential, the optimized. We’re told to build audiences, to batch content, to repurpose our thoughts into ever more digestible forms. Nothing is allowed to stay small. Nothing is allowed to simply be. But there’s a quiet power in what refuses to scale. A handwritten letter. A meal cooked slowly for one person. A moment of real attention, offered without a motive. A poem read aloud to no one but yourself. These are...

Fragments of Frost and Fire - Episode 11 - Sanctuaries

My Sunday morning thoughts...   “Sanctuaries” They rise like fortresses of fortune, etched against the skyline— stone, steel, glass stacked in shimmering layers, palaces built to outlast time itself. Their gates never creak. They glide open only for those whose names carry weight like currency. Inside, the air hums low with comfort— climate tuned precisely, floors that shine like mirrors, chandeliers spun from light itself, hallways vast as canyons lined with gold-leafed words about generosity. They dine on imported delicacies, aged wines, discussing strategies for change , how best to guide the unruly world beyond their walls. Through rose-colored windows they gaze out, seeing only what flatters them back— poverty as a puzzle to be solved from afar, desperation as distant noise, a problem of policy, never proximity. They craft rules for those outside— codes, decrees, restrictions— shaping streets they’ve never walked, drafting laws with hands that have never touched a callus ...