The Hopeful Poet

This blog is a fluid river of poetry and all of the other things i love and appreciate. Love to you all Your friend, despite the distances that separate us Joshua Amos Graff

[graff1980]

It’s all in the free fall, the lean back to relax, and leave all that drama in the past.

It’s all in the let go because if you keep it all that buried deep shit it can get old and mold, make you feel like you sold a cold soul for a sense of control that never was real.

That hungry hunter killing will will eventually kill the childlike playful side that keeps our joy alive, and saves us from the nine to five suicide.

As far I can divine we only get one lifetime. Though we are evolving time is not a revolving door that we get to spin with and come back in again.

So we better get all the enjoyment we can.

-2026

[graff1980]

Blessed be the strangers, stranger than expected, but worthy of being protected from the government’s directives.

Blessed be the food makers, art creators, history and culture curators who share their sweet multicultural wares, all that flavor we savor, different or familiar, similar salty, sweet, spicy treats, soft mushy, or crunchy, plus the artwork, and music that’s beautifully humbling.

Blessed be the children outside playing, smiling, and laughing, while politicians keep acting like their existence is a civil violation.

We are blessed by immigrants, descendants of them, so everyone is our kin no matter their place of origin or the level of melanin in their skin.

-2025

[graff1980]

It is chaos how the corrupt played us, leaving behind the vacant stares of caged children and families in mind altering agony.

Stress rubbing against the grain of my stubble as I stare out at all this human rubble, and all this inhumanity makes me miss the innocence of ignorance and the arrogance of my adolescences.

Living in a drought I continue to draw from the well of emptiness in you, sup up a dry pit that makes us all sick as I attempt to turn the poisonous darkness of our dark abyss into a truth that sparks empathy in humans.

Gazing into the depths of each iris, seeing eyes with oceans of emotions swirling behind them, stress and anxiety driving, but not directing their journey, the loss of energy turning vibrant beings different shades of exhausted, while love intermingles with the silver blade of grief that is gleaming slick with our heart's blood after losing so much,

I see how we keep getting up, despite the rage, and pain,

how in hours of anguish we still manage to be kind,

how amidst all that anger sometimes we find the right path to fight back and make sure this night doesn’t last forever, even though we know we may never get to see the sunrise on that better life,

how sometimes we only survive by surveying the night sky and all of its coldness, knowing it holds its potential of a spectacular star sparkling fire turning in eternity, and burning in Infinity, living for a moment in a singular entity that sees its beauty and paints deep wells of pain in a Starry Starry Night.

-2026

[graff1980]

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[graff1980]

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[graff1980]

You can talk trash, but eventually you’ll have to walk back all that crap that you were saying. Strap a heavy pack to your back and stand up. If you claim to be man enough, try your luck and double up on troublesome stuff, the risky business of living up to the commitments you claim are your guiding principles.

-2025

[graff1980]

Caffeine may be the death of me eventually, hypertension blood pressure increasing while helping with my limited energy and creativity.

It probably has taken a few years but they’ll be the rough ones waiting on the otherside of sixty to eighty, the shitting my pants daily and wearing depends, hardly moving, and in pain waiting for the end.

-2026

[graff1980]

My heart knows no borders, sees no strangers, speaks in silent acts of kindness, finds its fulfillment in instilling the warm feeling of peace, smiles when someone needs a person to put them at ease.

It does not work perfectly. Occasionally it acts in opposition to the way it should be, but generally, it finds itself wanting to be kind and help.

It hurts when others suffer, aches when others hunger, starving for affection and sustenance, longs to fill empty stomachs, and is flummoxed by apathy, and outright acts of cruelty.

My heart sees beauty in the unknown, light where darkness tries to grow, strength and resilience in immigrants, victims, survivors, children, men, and woman still living despite their horrible circumstances, begs the universe to give those who wish to live multiple chances.

I am that heart held in hand, inked in verse, full-bodied manifestation of the man I long to be, humanity’s benefactor who longs to see my love manifest a new reality. So I must act accordingly.

-2025

[graff1980]

In anger you eviscerated me, listened to my pleas for empathy then came with murder in your heart for all of our shared humanity, making me the last poet progeny left to resurrect the Lazurus effect. a crucified guy who tries to survive this bitter frost life of lies, the pointed prince of pain perfected and painted in plain language with a lick of delicious flourishes.

Now, I bring a snack of words to work with and devour them like the snake that eats itself, cause I am empowered to shit a mess made of me then mix it in with undigested phlegm, swirl each new world I discover in a stew, and create a new universe for all of you to view anew with a taste of salvation to enchant those among you who would chance to dance with me in a sea of sweet syllable mysteries.

Till in the end I become Romeo romancing the stone alone at home writing poems to no one except for my once and future reader. I become the philosopher and soothsayer, the seer and speaker of thoughts I hear along with the worms in my ear that play the same melancholy melody repeatedly.

-2026

[graff1980]

The titans are frightened of people inviting each other inside and finding enlightenment in the companionship that humans provide, of the masses figuring out that the wealthy class is is full of fascists, but they’re not all powerful.

We don’t need David to slay Goliath and set us free because we outnumber the enemy by billions and billions, so we can rebuild the buildings destroyed by warmongers, as we restore dormant feelings of friendship and kinship from a global distance, healing the wounds that divide and rising higher than any eagle can ever hope to fly.

That is why I stand up offer my hand in love to invite anyone who wants to build a better world because alone we will never be enough to overcome adversity, but together with diversity we have a chance.

-2025

[graff1980]

It is already certain, a specific sorrow working its way through my days, because I am limited.

My mortality is a book and written in it is the painful fact that my death may leave a sad impact but after that life goes on.

My hope is that when I am gone my brother and his family will survive that tragedy.

I live with the knowledge that I will most likely not get to live to see my nephews grow their own family, and as time rolls on they will lose me. Bits of my identity, and our fun times playing will fade like sunburnt jeans.

They may still speak of me but it will be in tiny fragments of vagaries. Shifting shades will see me become someone I never was for those I love, as they forget the tickles, and chases, the half a block then back again foot races, the story book time, the wrestling and telling me about their loose teeth, the going out to eat, the telephone calls randomly or for specific things.

So, I guess I will keep making notes in poetry hoping that one day down the line they will read, see, and believe how much I loved them.

-2026

[graff1980]

It’s pretty frustrating. I’m just waiting for us to stop hating and make love great again. We’ve been fighting when we should have been sitting at a table sipping lemonade, conversating, instead of trying to eliminate people with different levels of melanin because a felon and his friends want to replace our good sense with racism and arrogance.

-2025

[graff1980]

I’m a superhero with a red heart, and electric powers that spark an arc of art, a stream of consciousness that I impart as a wicked word warrior shocking strangers, unlocking the minds of those who find themselves in immediate danger of their anger burning them to pieces as its releases the inner beast that will not let them find peace, a fury that reaches and preaches from the pedestal of the priestess pushing people to rip each other into pieces, a place where our defeat is universal unless we can come together and agree that we need a world made up and for love that outpowers the souring affect of the hierarchy of our hypocritic patriarchy that is driven like a broken battery of greed, one that burns itself with the acid it bleeds while we are forced to accept the consequences of letting con men benefit from the bullshit manipulation of a house of cards system they helped create that is for men to play and when it doesn’t serve them to flip the table, take the cards, and burn them like our money when it’s sent to pay for more war.

-2026

[graff1980]

Collectively, we dream in scenes of unity, becoming the cosmic seam stitched between night and day. Together we are as strong as Atlas holding up that heaven’s vastness, giving loved one enough room to breathe and the time they need to find some peace.

We set the constellations and define how they are interrelated, with artistic inferences made and debated as we await the fate we created.

We sketched the best maps, tracked present tenses back to the past and asked what we could learn from that.

Our life is light made of tiny embers ready to set the night ablaze, as we scare away the boogeymen hiding behind ignorance's shade, whilst we find a way to complicate simple thing, and simplify complex ideas that we need to survive.  

-2025

[graff1980]

I am not hurried or super worried about where we are, because I have been counting stars from where we started, pointing out perfect constellations, embracing space chasing daydreams, sussing out the secrets that celestial bodies hold to know the gravity of this current existence, grateful that I lived in the age of Star Trek, and that I can run back in my mind, rewind some fine times, and enjoy the sunshine.

I don’t need to chase paradise because right now is all right.

So, don’t worry if you see me stop and stare at the sky in the evening cause it is just the kid in me enjoying the cosmic glory of my limited time only once in a life spin in and around our galaxy.

-2026

[graff1980]

It’s my own history sometime in 2003, outside of my house the thermometer reads a hundred and some degrees, so I can't sleep. I’m sweating through my jeans and soaking my sheets cuz the electricity is out. Window’s open but that’s just wind bringing in heat versus the high temp that’s boiling me inside my home at night.

The only reason this is currently relevant is cuz my mind is like an elephant's recalling past elements similar to current temperatures. The sun is blazing on my head, but fortunately for me today I still have working electricity, so it doesn't feel like I'm sizzling on mother nature's grill, and when I get home from work my AC will still work well, and let me chill myself to a sweet sleep.

-2025

[graff1980]

You have a heart that burns brighter than a morning star, the kind that shines from where you are and baths innocent babes in your maternal affection.

You are as fierce as an archangel with the spirit of a guardian, activated activist singing with a voice that rings with empathy, and moving with the energy of a compassionate human being.

Artist extraordinaire. If I was a man of faith I’d ask God to replace Metatron with you, because that whole heavenly hierarchy God created patriarchy could use someone as divine as you.

My friend when you are not there at poetry events there’s a Sydney sized hole, an emptiness that fits but cannot contain your powerful presence, because there is no cage strong enough to hold your essence, and no poem perfect enough to express my admiration.

-2026