Paper Oranges

Paper Oranges is a poetic response to Vladimir and Estragon, Beckett's infamous pair, who pin their hopes on salvation that never arrives. It explores the notion of human existence as an extended wait characterized by quiet desperation, loneliness, suffering and the search for self. People who find themselves suspended in time and longing for something to alleviate their boredom tend to idle rather than move forward in any meaningful direction. But could there be an alternate narrative? If so, what shape would it take and how might it forever alter those whose "graveyard lives inside them," those who fill up their days waiting for the next thing -- the better job, the bigger car, the perfect spouse, the next terrorist attack? Using the metaphor of flight, these evocative poems examine how habit and daily routine, societal convention and moral obligation trap us in the emotional death of repetitive cycles. Perhaps the only truth in this random universe lies in the present moment. To waste it waiting for an illusive Godot is tragic and absurd, for it is only by confronting our existence in the now that we can act, leap and make bold choices, mindful, always, of the accountability that accompanies freedom.