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    • The Strange Sum of Things (2025)
    • Butterfly Glory (2024)
    • Psalm 37 Menagerie (2023)
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Jeff Reed

1141 Bont Lane
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Phone Number
Wind in the Reeds Poetry

Jeff Reed

  • Themed Projects
    • Chiastic Poetry
    • Sea to Sea
    • Animagus Extinctio
    • Under a Runaway Throttle
  • Lent Projects
    • Autophagy Briefs (2026)
    • The Strange Sum of Things (2025)
    • Butterfly Glory (2024)
    • Psalm 37 Menagerie (2023)
  • Poems
  • Songs
  • Books
  • ABOUT

THREE

March 7, 2025 Jeff Reed

whiff three times at the plate

and that’s it. too late. you’re out.

not out like Jesus three days

in the grave now risen.

more like Dale Curtis Gaines,

harmless as an alley turkey,

out of commission after

three swings at petty theft,

sentenced by law to life in prison.



Note:  Dale Curtis Gaines is a mentally disabled three-strike lifer.  According to a 2011 analysis of state data by Stanford Law School’s Three Strikes Project, nearly 40% of three-strike lifers in CA qualify as mentally ill. Source: NYTimes article.

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