• A VISIT

    I’ve always imagined that one of these nightsI’d see my mother’s ghost. I would welcome the sightwelcome she that bore me, not she that stepped inin a way,absolving my birth mother of her sin,while assuming adopting me would make her complete. She hasn’t visited yet, neither has done so,but I hold out hope, it is…


  • DEFLATED DREAMS

    when did youthful dreamsslip awayerodeget consumed byparentsteachersor simply abandoned reality, yourstheirs a poor substituteall edgesand pointspiercing hope love once (a) givenrendered faint hopeworse, impossible dreamdelusion? you wantto think notwant so muchcan’t havebad for youwe know goodwhen we give itnone for you timepast sogrow up


  • INSIDE, UNSEEING

    I’ve been trying to discover howit is that those inside the beltwayelected to office, or workingfor those who were elected,have all sense of irony (andin some cases. civility) erased. How else to explain that for manythere can be no climate changewhile the nation they serveis bearing its cost, climatologicallyand in discourse and diversity,and still they…


  • ON BEING

    They arrive unannouncedoften not seen untilthey have been among usand won’t say howor when they arrived.Some claim to have seentheir arrival as theyhave seen other visitorsvisible only to them,and predict their departurewith a certainty bornof a delusion or a sensebeyond the understanding.Others say that theare merely us in masquerade,it is we who are deludedfor there…


  • TOO WAY BACK MACHINE

    Platform shoes, velourNehru jackets, what the hellwere we thinking, and pinkvelour, seriously, for men. At least it was Hendrix, Byrds,and not Pat Boone and AndyWilliams, almost the deathof music as we know it. Reefers were evil, told us so,and when we figured out it waspot, we begged to differ, frequentlybetween hits on the bong, after…


  • BARDLESS

    Laertes was supposed to visit mein my dreams last night,but Iago texted that they bothwere suddenly otherwise engaged. There is a strong possibility, of coursethat this was just another instanceof Marlowe trying to wreak havocwith my ever more precious sleep. Tomorrow I will recall none of thisfor the day ereases my dreamsmuch as the sun…


  • NAMASTE

    There was a time, still withinmemory’s ever more tenuous graspthat I imagined myself, at this age,as a monk in a Buddhist templein Kyoto, that I had assumed a silenceimposed by lack of language, not faith. I am certain that the Japaneseare pleased that I let that dreampass unfulfilled, that I confinemy practice to that American…


  • I SPEND THE EMPTY HOURS

    I spend considerable time thinkingabout what it is that I am, what is I,whether Descartes’ God or Spinoza’scould possibly exist, or must if I can havemeaning beyond self-reflection, needinga godly mirror, and image reflected.Cogito, on what basis can I draw that conclusionwhat logical proof, carefully constructed willnot fall under the weight of the axiom, cogito…


  • MELODY

    I sing a shattered songof someone else’s youththe melody forgottenthe words faded into oddsyllables heard in my dreams.The coyote stands at the edgeof a gully staring at meand wondering why I slipfrom the hogan throughthe hole punchedin the back wallslinking awayin the encroaching dark.The priest, his saffron robespulled tight around his legsin the morning chill,stares…


  • STRANGE NIGHT

    It was a most unusual nightin the city, and a surprising numberof its residents took note of thatwhich in itself was unusual. By 2:00 A.M., those awake andthose who had awakenedstrained to hear it, but therewas nothing at all, no sounds to which they had becomeso accustomed, and some imaginedthey had been transportedfrom the city…