Dispatch #1

The Graduation

Thank you for subscribing to Dispatches From the Basement. It’s a joy and a pleasure to share poems directly with readers.

“The Graduation” was written on commission last year for a high school graduation party. The piece was read aloud, and I was told it went over well. No one yawned.

Since it’s almost that time of year again, I thought I’d share it as this newsletter’s inaugural poem.

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The Graduation

What’s the world
if it isn’t broken?
So far, so to speak,

you’ve remained
intact. Whoever
you are, wherever

you’re headed, this
poem is speaking
to you. Take it

as an amulet—
it isn’t advice.
What can I say?

There’s no such
thing as a stranger.
The poem proves it.

Most poems do.
A poem moves
from one line,

one breath, one
fuck up to the next.
Life itself is poetry.

The triumph
is that we’re here at all—
that we continue. You continue.

Listen as the lines fall,
and know the meaning
is in how you receive them.