Rumi
In a dream I asked him
What can I do
if I can’t change it
And he pointed
to the graves
and whispered witness it
Copyright © 2026 Joseph Fasano. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Poems
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For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper
Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
2023
Odysseus
Think of the moment before the moment.
Before recognition. Before the nurse saw
the boar’s scar coursing down his thigh
where the world had first entered him
in the forests of childhood. Before
Penelope. Before his battle for her heart.
Think of his moment alone on the beach,
his sailors running up to the village
where girls stood wringing spices
from their hair. Think of the gods saying to him
you do not have to praise ruin anymore;
you do not have to praise what is lost.
How you imagine him is how you enter things.
2018
Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege
No, we are not going to die.
The sounds you hear
knocking the windows and chipping the paint
from the ceiling, that is a game
the world is playing.
Our task is to crouch in the dark as long as we can
and count the beats of our own hearts.
Good. Like that. Lay your hand
on my heart and I’ll lay mine on yours.
Which one of us wins
is the one who loves the game the most
while it lasts.
Yes, it is going to last.
You can use your ear instead of your hand.
Here, on my heart.
Why is it beating faster? For you. That’s all.
2024