democracyroad

    Enlighten Radio Presents   Dark -- But Untwisted     Poems to the "black swan" -- associated with magical rarity, or fantasy contexts, except in Australia whence they originate. Jeanine Leane, Bridget Pegeen Kelly, Katharyn Howd Machan, more Wednesdays 10 AM Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case This Episode Recorded May 18, 2026 Odile, The Black Swan by Una Mcdonnell Impossible to look at her without thinking dark water, depths where light doesn't reach. In the diner on Dalhousie, her presence commands the booth, though only the decrepit at the counter sees the water rising, water- line gurgling just beneath her chin. Flutter of a dark wing that briefly stretches. Sally, a regular, orders coffee between johns, eggs at 4 a.m. They arrive, sunny side silicon perfect. Minivans line up to glean sorrow from her eyes. If only I could dance, says Sally. When the sky turns pink, she'll sleep. Odile once had an act involving lit black candles and a snake. Smoke she could conjure on demand. Rose on stage, an angel from the black lake. They all desired her, but one. Before Champagne Rooms, loose laws, when looking was enough She holds her mug as if it could contain her. The transistor radio tin-tin-tins demented heart songs tie a yellow ribbon -- and getting caught in the rain --¦ and I'll never have that recipe again -- Pale-skinned fries rise like broken limbs from plates, tendrils of vinegar seep down. The scent is grease, acid, hot breath and chrome. There are no new ways to be alone. There are no new ways to mourn.   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents Will it be "Baseball", a fair game, or War   Stand Still, if you can.       Broadcast Thrsdays 11 AM, player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: John Case, James Boyd, Mike Cuccherini Mike updates the Spring Trainin Explosioins. Mean while, we await the likelihood of world war from the dice roll of the "Thucydides Trap" This Episode Recorded may 14 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

    Enlighten Radio Presents   Speakingof Rivers     Soulful flow of rivers: Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Oliver Tearl, Pablo Neruda, KLathleen Raine, Don Domanski, Rabindranath Tagore Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case This Episode Recorded may 6, 2026 The Negro speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

    Enlighten Radio Presents   Stand Still   The Bristlecone Pine A Magnificent collection of Tree Visions: Drink the undrinkable; Through a glass, darkly; The Trees are not lost. Joy Harjo, Adrienne Rich, Christian Wimen, WS Merwin, Jane Hirshfield. Poems of Peace. Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case This Episode Recorded April 29, 2026   The Bristlecone Pine by Mary Jane Myers For centuries, the stalwart pine has stood __in this unwonted spot. Its shallow roots and resinous hard wood __shield it from drought and rot. __Thin soil, high winds, cold air: it thrives where other living things cannot. __Dear tree, please hear my prayer. __Lend me your purple cone to plant inside my heart, its chambers bare, __arteries hard as bone. __For from your potent seed, that germinates on bleak and barren stone, __fresh hope will sprout. Indeed, to love's avowals I'd once again accede.   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents The Last Stop Cafe: Oscar Rumors The Natinals are Lookin HOT     Broadcast Thrsdays 11 AM, player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: John Case, James Boyd, Mike Cuccherini for the showboaters this is the boulevard of broken dreams. For hitchikers, this ride stops at area 51. For heroes this is the Heartbreak Hotel. For losers there's no more of that here. This Episode Recorded April 2, 2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

    Enlighten Radio Presents Seize the Time! April poems golden, April cloudy, Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy -- some of the many Aprils we thought we knew and the few we could not bear to lose. Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case This Episode Recorded April 1, 2026 Let Me Begin Again by Major Jackson Let me begin again as a quiet thought in the shape of a shell slowly examined by a brown child on a beach at dawn straining to see their future. Let me begin this time knowing the drumming in my dreams is me inheriting the earth, is morning lighting up the rivers. Let me burn my vanities: old music in the pines, sifters of scotch, a day moon like a signature of night. This time, let me circle the island of my fears only once then live like a raging waterfall and grow a magnificent mustache. Let me not ever be the birdcage or the serrated blade or the empty season. Dear Glacier, Dear Sea of Stars, Dear Leopards disintegrating at the outer limits of our greed; soon we will encounter you only in motivational tweets. Reader, I should have married you sooner. This time, let me not sleep like the prophet who believes he’s seen infinity. Let me run at break-neck speeds toward sceneries of doubt. I have no more dress rehearsals to attend. Look closer: I am licking my lips.   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

    Enlighten Radio Presents It is the 152nd Birthday of Robert Frost.   It is a season of Fire, Rain and Skunk Cabbage. mary oliver, emily dickinson, william carlos williams, gillian clarke, robert frost, ww, dh lawrence   Robert Frost I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; I'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too. I'm going out to fetch the little calf That's standing by the mother. It's so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too. Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case This Episode Recorded March 26, 2025   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents The Last Stop Cafe: This Shit Has No Bottom To Hell in a Handbasket     Thursdays 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd Mike, John and James depart from the sports, entertainment, and recovery culture discussions to take account of the horror show into which this country is being daily transformed. This Episode Recorded 3/25/2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents The Last Stop Cafe: Women's Soccer Blowout Ed. Big League Women's Soccer Champs!     Thursdays, 10 AM on www.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd Mia Hamm (Two-time World Cup & Olympic Champion) "I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion". This Episode Recorded Mar 18 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents The Last Stop Cafe: Trades and Recruits And pluck till time and times are done...     Broadcast LIVE Thursdays, 10 AM Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd Are there more lawyers than players in  pro sports? This Episode Recorded 3/12/2006 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents Last Stop Cafe: When a Bat is a Weapon Rough Play!     Thursdays, 10 AM Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd After the game is over, and the bodies are removed from the arenas and grounds. The lions are satiated. The children who failed to go to bed on time have all been devoured. Play Ball! This Episode Recorded March 3, 2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents Last Stop Cafe: The Eisenhower Show 2/5 Bombs Away     Broadcast LIVE hursdays 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: James Boyd, Mike Cuccherini, John Case At the conclusion of WW2 Eisenhower visited the Nazi concentration camp, over 80 years ago now. This is what he repotedly said: “Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.” This Episode Recorded Feb 5, 2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

Enlighten Radio Presents   Unexpected Poetics -- Seeking, and Finding Safe Harbor     Poets Dinah Hawken, Tracy K Smith, Ralph Williams, Don Hynes visit the peace of harbors. This poem by David Gregory, Reading the Bar/Whakatane Harbour, like the sea, does not encourage adjectives.   Reading the Bar Whakatane Harbour   Such a liquid language lisping between the headlands with a slight disturbance of syntax over the rocks, fresh and salt; the river knuckling under. Read the slurred waves. Air as braille against the skin, hair; always more episodes of driftwood. An interrogation of gulls demand their living off the backs of water. The sea is not contained by adjectives – sullen, playful, unforgiving – the insult of ignorance has a sure response. A woman stands alone literate in grief.   David Gregory Based on a True Story, Sudden Valley Press, 2024   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]

  Enlighten Radio Presents The Last Stop Cafe: Is it Really Over? How do you know its the End of the Road? 6 3 4 5 7 8 9     Thursdays 10 AM -- player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, James Boyd, John Case Well, I started out down a dirty road; Started out all alone. And the sun went down as I crossed the hill And the town lit up, the world got still I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings Coming down is the hardest thing Well, the good old days may not return And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn This Episode Recorded March 5, 2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

Enlighten Radio Presents The Outer Planets and beyond: What are we really looking at? Sarah Doyle, David Sutton. Derek Walcott and Ada Limon answer. Broadcasts LIVE: Wednesdays, 10 AM Eastern Time. Hosts: Janet Harrison and John Case This Episode Recorded 2/17/2026     In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa by Ada Limon Arching under the night sky inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know, we pin quick wishes on stars. From earth, we read the sky as if it is an unerring book of the universe, expert and evident. Still, there are mysteries below our sky: the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree. We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein. O second moon, we, too, are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas. We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark.   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents The Last Stop Cafe: Can the Super Bowl Save Us? Or, Is Everything Broken?     Thursdays 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd There May Be Hope: Spring Training starts in just a few weeks. Unless FF Wrecks That TOO This Episode Recorded 2/5/2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]  

  Enlighten Radio Presents Paris on the Potomac: Words Fail But Courage Lives Against All Odds -- young candidates are fighting the madness.     Fridays: 8:00 AM Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case The energy and natural resources and utilities have told their flunkies in the Trump pseudo-party to turn West Virginia into an energy colony. The people will be invited to leave. Paris might have to find somewhere else to reside. Perhaps different state of mind. Where is Bob Weir? This Episode Recorded Feb 6, 2026 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV   Our Blog   Our Player   Our Podcasts questions, comments: [email protected]