Blog posts by R.M. Dolin
A curated collection poems, essays, and novel excerpts presented in reverse chronological order, i.e., first post is last.
When Time Stands Still, November 24, 2025
Chapter 16 in the R.M. Dolin novel “An Unsustainable Life – The Book of Darwin.” Darwin and Vincent have a great fall day in the wild mustang meadow listening to a Cubs game but they get home to learn of Ilene’s unannounced return to Chicago causing Vincent to follow. When his plane crashes in a mountain storm, Darwin flies to Chicago to be there for Ilene and Issac. He does the best he can to offer emotional support but feels he fails everyone, including himself. READ CHAPTER, Read Companion Poem
The Coming Singularity, November 13, 2025
Chapter 14 in the R.M. Dolin novel “An Unsustainable Life – The Book of Darwin.” Darwin’s former protege, Tien, shows up at Darwin’s wilderness hacienda hoping to convince him to join her and a small cohort of concerned technologist to do something to counter the existential threat AI poses to humanity. But first they have to work through how to deal with the mess Tien made trying to clean up the mess Darwin caused that day at Berkeley. READ CHAPTER, Read Companion Poem
Road to Redemption, November 8, 2025
Chapter 11 in the R.M. Dolin novel “An Unsustainable Life – The Book of Darwin.” Place really does provide context for mood and thought, which is why each time Darwin pulls into his high mountain meadow, he’s overcome with the powerful burden of consequence, compelled to revisit the causal factors behind how he came to be here; how he walked away from a life that was so damn hard to set up because that provides the context for what happens next and “next” seems extra loaded with drama and complexity as he considers the “whats” and “whys” of all the things that matter. READ MORE, Read Companion Poem
The Code of the West, October 12, 2025
Short Story: In the West Texas desert along the American/Mexican border just a bit north of Big Bend, a seemingly straightforward elk hunt turns into a persistent battle between life and death with nature in control.
Read Short Story
The Last Lost Soul’s Seduction, October 4, 2025
The one-eyed raven comes quietly cloaked
in shadowless certainty
the souls she stealthily steals
in staggered stages
swoon in the tender addiction
of a lover you dare not touch
while artfully disguising cunning
as altruistic benevolence
consuming your need for more.
Read Poem
Message In A Bottle, July 14, 2025
Essay: At my regular monthly poker game a substitute player delivers a cryptic message from the CIA via a bottle of wine. The problem is, that while I do receive the message, I don’t know how to decipher it and don’t know what the Watchers want, I do, however, have some theories. . .
Read Essay
Truth and Trust in Crisis, June 30, 2025
When the history of COVID is truthfully told, long after we’ve learned to filter through political distortions, academic malfeasance, medical malpractice, media sensationalism, and our emotional investment in hysteria, the crisis won’t be remembered for its death toll, the economic chaos caused, the personal turmoil, or even the irrational logic of facemasks, placing infected in nursing homes, quarantining healthy people, or injecting entire populations with untested drugs; COVID will be remembered as the first crisis of the digital age and how data is weaponized into prescribed narratives and used to manipulate the masses into Pavlovian subterfuge
Truth and Trust in Crisis is a double entendre; while it delivers a comprehensive analysis of the COVID crisis, it also provides the tools and roadmap necessary in the digital age to push past lies and distortions to assess who can be trusted and who’s telling the truth.
This book is available for free because science has an obligation to serve humanity. Access Book for Free
The Answer Behind the Answer, June 16, 2025
Essay: You ask me why I no longer blog about politics expecting an elevator answer. I’ve given it a lot of thought and my answer’s the same now as it was when I stopped. The easy out is that the world’s gotten too crazy and confrontational to listen to anything other than empty echoes of irrational ranting, so why even attempt to add logical discourse. A deeper answer is that my first amendment lawsuit against the government remains ongoing and given the heavy handed way I’ve been banned from publishing why tickle the dragon….even though it seems increasingly imperative I do.
READ ESSAY
An Unsustainable Life – The Book of Issac, June 9, 2025
A novel about the importance of escaping technology’s grip on our humanity: Darwin walks away from a successful silicon valley career to live a self sustaining life in the New Mexico wilderness. His one regret is not helping his nephew Issac be more responsible. Now Darwin’s dead and Issac needs his inheritance. He arrives in New Mexico to challenge probate for a quick cash out only things are not as straight forward as they would seem. READ BOOK
The Grand Illusion, June 4, 2025
Even if I could,
even if I wanted to,
I don’t have a way
to explain any of this
to anyone,
including myself.
READ POEM
Certain Beauty, May 30, 2025
There’s a certain beauty
in sadness,
lonely echoes of
diminishing quiet
awaken the invisible soul
we keep only for ourselves
READ POEM
Still My Foolish Heart, May 16, 2025
Everything I needed to know
was foretold in
the flatline fatigue
of your smile.
Still the same,
a resolute heart is allowed
to hear the background beat
of deepening thunder masquerade
as melodic melodies.
READ POEM
Truth and Trust in Crisis, April 22, 2025
When the history of COVID is truthfully told, long after we’ve learned to filter through political distortions, academic malfeasance, medical malpractice, media sensationalism, and our emotional investment in hysteria, the crisis won’t be remembered for its death toll, the economic chaos caused, the personal turmoil, or even the irrational logic of facemasks, placing those infected in nursing homes, quarantining healthy people, or injecting entire populations with untested drugs; COVID will be remembered as the first crisis of the digital age and how data is weaponized into prescribed narratives and used to manipulate the masses into Pavlovian subterfuge. [Book originally posted in 2021] READ BOOK
He’s Already Made Up Her Mind, March 15, 2025
“We’ve been here before
and now is not a time for laughter,”
Wind warns knowing he won’t listen.
The path is clear when often traveled
but dangerously easy to overlook signs
guiding your way. He chooses to believe,
as he always does, the heart finds its home.
The tenderness of her touch,
the soft magic in the songs she sings to his soul,
the warm way her smile signals
she’s already made up her mind about him.
READ POEM
What Is To Be Done, February 14, 2025
First in a three-part trilogy. Jake just lost the love of his life, Emelia, to COVID and is doesn’t know what to do. His friends and fellow technologists are there for him but its a heavy lift. The one thing keeping Jake grounded is his work with the Americas for a New America (ANA), which consists of former government scientist who feel obligated to fix the listing vessel of democracy. Their virtual coup is ready to launch but local matters keep interrupting their revolutionary ambitions. READ NOVEL
The Dangling Conversation, January 12, 2025
Kyle is an older man with a lot of baggage who sits every evening alone on a park bench waiting for his life to make sense. Isabelle is a much younger woman escaping an abusive relationship hoping this new start-over finally sticks. Besides sharing a park bench, they share their lives as each tries to justify how they got here along with their unbendable faith that happiness is still possible. READ NOVEL
The Long Ago of Yesterday, January 27, 2025
I still taste the tenderness of
sunrise on your touch,
the way you hold me,
or maybe I hold you.
In the end,
does it even ever matter?
The long ago of yesterday lingers
like a tent, alone and isolated on
the rocky edge of waiting for
something that’s already happened. . . .
READ POEM
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