FOREWORD: Is there beauty in a grey sky? In an empty field or sewage plant? There might be beauty in these things, in the waste and bald tires, in the forgotten byproducts of our contemporary life. But beauty, like truth and meaning, is not waiting to be found, it must be created and fought for. Beauty requires effort- the perceivers and creators of beauty must put the work in. Sometimes, they might even have to die for it. But we, the creators and perceivers, are tired, we are exhausted, we are angry, bitter and resentful. It is easier to sit on the couch and forget infinity, easier to sleep. It is easier to hate than to love, easier to destroy than to create. I don't know if we as a civilization have what it takes to create the beauty we need to sustain us. We might just let the broken laptops and abandoned buildings overwhelm us, succumb to the progress and the oblivion and the chaos we helped engineer, let it slowly kill us because it is easier. The poems in this book, while not a definitive answer or philosophical statement, grapple with this idea, namely that we need to create beauty. I don't know how successful the poems are in this regard, and in some cases the poems may succumb to the couch, to the intoxicating nihilism. I'll let you, the reader, decide the fate of the poems, but in a wider sense, I will also ask you to decide if you want to create the beauty we so desperately need. If you do not, there is nothing wrong with that decision either. ~Angelo J. Letizia, PhD