Dean Rader Poems

America, I Do Not Call Your Name Without Hope

After Neruda
...

I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.
—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1784)

The dead are done with their declarations.
...

The news this morning
said that Ramadi
had fallen to ISIS
and that the president
...

I don't want to be the blood on the blade,
but the world is a walking war,
and every inch of air is a wound.
Distant angel, your wings are wide
...

The heavens call to you and revolve about you,
showing to you their eternal beauties;
and your eye is still gazing upon the earth.
—Dante, Purgatorio
...