-
LIVING
They sit in a small wine bar on an out-of-the-way street in an out-of-the-way city, she sipping a Oregon Pinot Noir while he is on his second Alsatian Pinot Gris. She asks him if he ever thinks about death. He peers into his wine glass, than at her and smiles a gentle smile, “I don’t,”…
-
EUTERPEAN EVENING
An evening: spring retreating in the face of summer, two garnacha, a piano, standup bass, drums, her voice lifts the weight of the sky and we float up on a melody, unchained. In heaven George and Ira smile and we, here, smile with them.
-
TURNING
He says, “I’ve run out of cheeks, my own family has used up so many and there are so few left, I save them to have one to turn when someone sincerely and truly atones.” “I suppose,” she says, “there is some logic to that.” “Not at all,” he replies, “for if someone truly atones,…
-
CZERNY IN HELL
Mrs. Schwarting lived in a small cottage. Mrs. Schwarting taught piano in her living room. Mrs. Schwarting had no first name, even checks were to be made payable to “Mrs. Schwarting.” Mrs. Schwarting grew suddenly old, some said, to fully fit into her name, no one could remember her ever being young. Mrs. Schwarting said…
-
SHE SAID
She said that we are little more than clay to be molded by God and carved by fate and we count on nothing more than this day. It’s but a week since she has slipped away, we expect our sense of loss to abate. She said that we were little more than clay, just so…
-
FROM BEYOND
My grandmother speaks to me from time to time, in a voice that sounds remarkably like my own, but the dead borrow voices, it is so much easier than exercising their own, and there is so little need for words once they leave. She hasn’t changed all that much, still opinionated, still ready to have…
-
ROAD TRIP
Two nights gone and sleep has come fitfully, and I stir each time I reach across the bed and you aren’t there, and there is only the faintest smell of bleach and cleaning solvent. I want very much to dream of you, to trace your cheek with dream fingers, to taste your lips on mine,…
-
MORNING BECOMES
We awaken and look at each other as though we are meeting for the first time. Your eyes seem new to me, but well remembered, a place I have often been, which is always new, always where I want to go, from which I want to never return. I trace your chin, your shoulder-blade, and…
-
DISEMBARKING NARITA
You disembark quickly a small bow to the flight crew, and walk briskly to immigration. The young man glances at your passport and embarkation card hands flying with the stamps. The baggage is offloaded onto the creeping segmented belt yours the fifth through the heavy plastic flaps hefted onto the cart. The customs agent pauses…
-
ERGO COGITO
She says she is certain she exists, much as she is certain he exists as well. He says, she thinks she exists, thinks he does as well. Descartes, he says, was…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
an old writer and his words 