• IMMEASUREABLE

    The distance between truthand belief is as small as the widthof a hydrogen atom, yetas wide as the diameterof a galaxy of your choice. You say truth is relative, Iknow that it can morphin the face of circumstancebut that hardly makesrelativity a factor in truth. You say you believe in truth,at least as you see…


  • THE LETTER

    Today I should receive the letterthat I sent to myself twenty years ago,telling me what I should be, where Ishould be, who I should be, for the meof twenty years ago was, by his ownadmission, far smarter than I am, althoughI am here and he is nowhere to be found. If the letter does not…


  • LANDING

    She sends us a map showing on which tribe’s land we are now living. This is not something we have thought about, not something we want to think about, for that would demand that we are the usurpers, the horde whose pogrom was ultimately successful, and that is a face that refuse to see in…


  • THE WALL

    The wall is black granite, highly polished be an unseen hand and the fingers of countless thousands present but each unseen by the others. At first glance you want to count the names, but you lack fingers enough for the task and others are quickly withdrawn as are their eyes. You know where the names…


  • IMAGINING

    I never imagined any of this, couldn’t have you correctly note, but I imagined many things that did not, could not exist, that after all is one purpose of dreams and nightmares. I did imagine writing, words shaped to fit odd places, never round pegs or square holes, but fluid, shifting shapes like lava seeking…


  • MISSING SONGS

    The problem, or one of them, isthe lack of music today. We haveall manner of what people call music,but not the music of the sortwe need, needed once and found,as we stormed the bastionsand bastards who mired us in war,who shunned darker brothersand sisters, who made alienablebasic rights to half of us withoutrhyme or reason,…


  • AVERAGE

    I am indistinct, maleof reasonable heightand weight, a bit muchmore than I care,but hardly distinct. I have not sufferedmysogeny, beenoverlooked forbeing the wronggender, as ifthere is rightand wrong. I have not feltthe stingof racism, I ammerely oneof the lemmingsmarching alongto the abysscertain of myprivilege, ableto cede myhumanity.


  • WALLS

    It is one thingto build a wallthat othersstop and admire,yet make ithigh enoughthey don’lt thinkof climbing over it. Walls are meantto keep, inor out is neverclear, and actuallyit is always both,for a walltakes no sides,a silent sentinel. And no wallis impenetrableand unscalablesave that surroundingthe heartless oneswho are destinedto die alonein anger.


  • CONVERSATION

    Arising into nightthe departing suntangoes away with its cloud,memories soon forgotten.Other dancers take the stage,now a romance, nowa war dance, feathers raisedin prayer to unseen gods.Night will soon bringits curtain across this stage,the avian cast’s final bows takenthe theatre will darken, awaitinganother performance,a new script tomorrow,but for this solitary momentof frozen grace, it is wewho…


  • REGARDING HISTORY

    We stand aroundin the shadowof the Coliseumstaring atthe Roman Forumimagining lifein the timeof the emperor. Fast forwardtwo or threemillennia,and imaginethe facesof those staringat the ruinsof our civilization if we have notdestroyed alllife by then.