The poem below distills for me the year 2003, when I was diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer. I was partway through chemotherapy when the inspiration for the poem arose. It took seconds to write.

I had joined a meditation group for patients at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. We were drumming and shaking tambourines and other instruments during one of the sessions. My heart was beating real fast. The boom boom boom was going right through me. With a passion I wanted to beat this cancer. ...more

“I realized while I was away I married you just because I thought you’d make a good officer’s wife. I never loved you. I’m leaving.” ...more

I have two mothers in Japan. One is my real mother. The other is a seventy-four-year-old, wealthy widow who loves to drink whisky and smoke. I don’t remember exactly when I met her, but she and I have kept in touch over the past five years. She was one of my clients in the securities company I worked for as a broker. She and I talked a lot then, not only about investments, but also about our lives ...more

When I relocated my family in 1970 from our comfortable suburban home a few miles southeast of Trenton, NJ to the idyllic woodlands of Hunterdon County twenty-five miles north of Trenton, I thought I was doing the right thing: building a new, larger house on five acres of wooded land next to a shallow, rippling trout stream. ...more

1968 was a seminal year in my life and in the lives of many. It was the year I tried hardest to change the political priorities of my country. With my wife’s support, I joined the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy for President. Inspired, I had designed a plan for RFK to capture the delegates of the states that selected its delegates through the convention system. There were 17 such states at the time. Everyone else had been working on the states that ran primaries. I sent the plan to the RFK Think Tank in DC. I didn’t have a name to send it to; I just sent it to the Think Tank office. ...more

Momma, if we talked about such things
I would tell you,
I met a girl
I think I love her
like I think I love you…
or as much as you would let me. ...more

[written from prison]

There are very few things
more pathetic
than watching a man
anticipating a visit
that never happens
the labors of sadness begin
when he doesn’t make first call ...more