• A MONK IN MEDITATION 鐵笛倒吹 七十語

    A man may own may volumes of great knowledge and never have time to read. An illiterate may take such books and fashion a stool on which to sit in meditation. Which of these is truly wise which the greatest fool. Wipe your mouth with this page at the conclusion of the meal. A reflection…


  • MOMENT

    Enter slowly, calmly, and we dare say enter at your own risk for you cannot know what will happen within, nor can we although we have been here countless times before if our memory serves us, which of course it cannot for it, too, is stuck in this very moment with no escape. Do not…


  • EACH

    imagine these words written end to end, each well known but the order setting this apart, in a long single line with a half twist Moebius-like, and not on a page but a band like life nothing discrete a continuum each word the only word each moment the only moment if you wish


  • NIGHT AT THE PUB

    It’s a fading memory now, a hole in the wall then, CBGB’s, loud, but nothing happening at Tommy Makem’s and here the cop and his pals play angry Irish with a foot in reggae and ska. I’m too old to be here, but no one really cares as long as I buy my Bushmills or…


  • WEB

    It has far less to do with the casting of the net, far more to do with the reeling it in. The spider wishes to work in peace weaving her web, does not desire to be seen. For her this is work and it is not until done, or as done as she chooses, that…


  • SHE HOPES

    Faith is something, she says, that everyone has, it is just that some don’t recognize it, even while the coin is flipping through the air and the desired outcome is whispered in the mind. She believes that life is a joy, but that it is also heaven’s waiting room, and while there may be a…


  • ETERNITY OR A WEEK

    He only wants to live forever, or if not, at least until a week from Thursday. Important things always happen on Wednesdays, he is convinced. He has no logical reason for his belief, but it is his and he will not be shaken from it. “It is a matter of faith,” he says “and you…


  • LONE STAR

    The oddest thing about Texas isn’t that nothing is really bigger, other than the imaginations and wishes of those who have spent far too much time there, no, the oddest thing is that we outsiders actually look to see if things are bigger. Well that and the fact that the locals can so easily get…


  • DAWN, AUGUST

    They cut neat incisions across the slate blue sky. The wounds they leave slowly peel back the white edges slowly spreading until the sky hemorrhages its cloud-like streaks. The oak drops yet another acorn and the squirrel scampers to gather it in before the sky flees under its gray-white blanket.


  • ONCE

    There was a time not all that long ago, he reminds me, when the event of an eclipse was a certain sign the world was ending. Prayers were offered in profusion, and the event proceeded and passed, so faith in prayer was restored, if not in astronomy. Today eclipses are viewed as just other celestial…