Stephen Latin-Kasper

CONTACT:
Stephen Latin-Kasper
Milwaukee, WI
Web: infinitwav.bandcamp.com
Web: coherentforecasting.org         

BIO: I worked as an economist/statistician from 1979 to present. In 2025, I founded my own economic consultancy firm. I am a member of the Bloomberg and National Association for Business Economics forecast panels. I started drumming at the age of 9 and haven’t stopped 60 years later. Music composition and lyric writing began in 1980, and continues today. Something about the pandemic caused me to start writing poetry. All of my song lyrics rhyme. Most of my poetry doesn’t.

PUBLICATIONS: Most of my writing has been technical/scientific and has been published in trade magazines, newspapers and scholarly journals.
The only poem I have published is The Importance Of Names in Mobius, The Journal of Social Change (Volume 34, Number 4, November 2023, mobiusmagazine.com)

Poetry

Deplaning in Majuro

An asphalt runway, surrounded by ocean;
just long enough to land a jet plane.
Door opens to wet fire.
Heat haze rises from the tarmac. 

People leaning on the terminal’s fence,
stare blankly at the strangers walking by.
Calling it a terminal is a stretch;
no walls, just poles supporting a thatch roof.

A thin strip of sandy soil separates
the ocean deep from the volcanic lagoon.
At a break in the atoll’s reef, they merge,
displaying all possible shades of blue. 

It is a mind-altering sight that stops thought.
Turning back, I see her, sitting on the sand,
equatorial light shimmering on waves
breaking on a shore of sheer beauty.

The red in her brown hair sparkles
as she leans back to catch the sun.
Refraction distorts the vision.
Boarding call transforms it into a memory.

Trees

Flowering trees
require five times more code
than a human.
We’re killing them,
and all other life on this planet
with thoughtless production
and consumption.

Trees cannot move,
but they communicate.
They cannot attack humans,
or can they?
Are they burning themselves
to hasten climate change;
to get rid of humans? 

They want to start over
with no humans present
to stress them out.
Are they so sick of us,
they are willing to commit genocide?
It’s a risky bet.
They might not survive the strategy.

Still, it seems clear
that we haven’t left them
any alternative.