American Dreams only $6.85

Photo Description: A photograph of an old, decaying sign for a restaurant. The blue main sign says "Deno's 6 & 85 cocktails restaurant" in white text. Below that is a smaller red sign, with white text, that says "open". Behind it is a very faintly blue sky and several power lines.

A Name of Life and Fire

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/a-name-of-life-and-fire-d26f3d00bb9a Image Description: A small stone chapel is in the foreground. It has stained glass windows, and a steeple with a cross at the top. The walls are made of stones of varying sizes. In the far bottom left, a staircase goes up and around the back. It sits on a rock. In the bottom right, green bushes are visible. The sky is a vivid blue, with orangish white clouds throughout. They are stretched across the sky, with a brushstroke-like texture.

Can You See the Sun Kissing the Earth?

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/can-you-see-the-sun-kissing-the-earth-b25a1ed02a61 Image Description: A landscape photo of a chapel in a mountain clearing. The chapel is in the top-right quarter of the photo. It is old and built of a variety of stones. The glow of the sun can be seen through one window, and a cross adorns a tower on the right. The top-left quarter is taken up by a mountain in the distance. The sky is full of fluffy clouds that are slightly gold-colored because of the sun behind the mountain. There is a lot of greenery and trees occupying the mid-ground to the right foreground. In the left foreground is a pond with a reflection of the sunset and the chapel.

The Hateful Never Smile

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/the-hateful-never-smile-46b6640a69cb Image Description: A black and white image of a vaulted wood roof. There are intricate butresses made of lighter and darker wood that form criss-crossed latices. There are five of them total, with the one at the top of the image being almost directly overhead.

Alphabet Soup

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/alphabet-soup-7f36e99d698e Image Description: A line of land is visible at the very bottom of the image. The foreground in the left half of photo is dominated by a stylized wind turbine. It appears as a large slender tower with a full circle of turbine blades around the top, forming a nearly complete circle. Fourteen identical wind turbines dot the horizon in the distance behind it, interspersed along the land at the bottom of the photograph. Just to the right of the main turbine are a pair of small birds. The entire foreground is silhouetted. The sky is filled with purple storm clouds that fade to reddish-orange at the horizon. The clouds are blurred with motion across the sky.

But I've Got Unlimited Data

Full Poem Here: https://medium.com/@wdibble/but-ive-got-unlimited-data-bcf8ec01cd3 Image Description: The picture is low to the ground. Train tracks stretch from the bottom to a third of the way up the photo. Yellow bushes line both sides of the tracks. The tracks are rusty and old. A mountain rises from the horizon line to two-thirds of the top of the photo. Evergreen trees dot the landscape and mountain. The sky is bright blue with whispy clouds.

This Moment Burns Us Alive

For full poem and image description: https://medium.com/@wdibble/this-moment-burns-us-alive-7fc1ce08f9d0

The Valley

It's my first day on the new job I used to teach. Today I'm doing class photos. Little girls, daughters of the parent volunteers, run in circles around my feet. I'm smiling but it's a facade. Yesterday, seventeen people needlessly had their lives uprooted and destroyed. Today people are telling me it's rude to demand gun control and infringe their rights Fucking rude. Today people are telling me it's they're classmates faults for not knowing of the coming hell. There are too many poems about people being shot but we stand here again. Every year the reaper thanks the NRA for padding their wallet. The reaper gets paid a commission of death. They care not that some of the victims haven't known love or niceness, haven't gotten to see their graduation day or get their first job. The politicians got their wages in private jets and personal gifts. They only pay out in meaningless thoughts and prayers while taking payment from the NRA. We fund death and ignorance instead of saving lives. Every school shooting is our reward for complacency. How many souls do we owe to the gun manufacturers? How many souls to the right to take lives at eight hundred fifty feet per second? How many souls to this worship of death machines while our future bleeds out in front of it's locker because we can't bring ourselves to confront the cause? I go to work scared that something will happen and a shooter will show up. It doesn't matter if their reason is because this school has a high Latino population or because they're just another angry white man. Because the reaper doesn't care. They get their pay and we get our heartbreak Either way we just lose and lose and lose Don't give me this thoughts and prayers bullshit if you aren't willing to help solve it Image Description: A rocky mountain valley. A railroad crosses a small steel bridge in the bottom left corner. Most of the plants are either evergreens or scrub-type plants. There’s a sliver of a stream or river in the right bottom third. A big rocky mountain comes down to meet a dirt road in the left half of the photo. A blue sky with fluffy clouds takes up the top third.

The World Moved On

Image Description: A railroad switch signal is in the foreground. It is old, rusted, and all the lights are broken. In the background, along the bottom third of the photo, are rocky mountains with evergreen trees on them. The top two thirds of the background is taken up by a sky with white clouds in it.

Can We Learn to Look Up?

Image Description: A night landscape. A pair of railroad tracks runs through a grassy field from the bottom of the image to the horizon, about a third of the way up. There are trees on the right in the foreground, and building lights on the horizon. In the sky, there are faint clouds and stars.

The Cacophony Assaulted Our Senses

Image description: Black and white photograph. A very reflective building with an all-glass exterior rises on the left. A concrete building with tall, vertical black windows rises parallel to that on the right. In between the two is a building made up of rows of windows and concrete. A few street lights and other buildings are visible at the bottom of the photo.

Commercial Goods for Commercial Gods

Image Description: Black and white photo of a city street. the sky has mild clouds, and there are cars stopped at a traffic light, facing away. Tall buildings rise on both sides, reflecting each other in the windows. The road is centered, and goes up and over a hill, out of sight.

The Gods Never Went Away, They Became New Idols

Did We Ever See The Sun?

Partial Reflections Are Still Part of a Whole

Image Description: A black and white photo of a building corner, looking upward at it. The windows are all black, and there is a shadow across part of it.

Sleepy Eyelids in Brick Faces

Will You Walk With Me?

She Spread Her Wings to Dry, Preparing to Roost for the Night

The Corn Wasn't Cradled, But We Went Through the Motions All the Same

Maybe Stairs Aren't So Bad

At the End of the Day, We Have Our Legacies

Have I Seen You Before?

Hold My Hand, I'm Self Destructing

When I Danced, It Was Full of Joy