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HERE LIES
Ambrose Bierce walked into Mexico one day, and was never seen again. That was surprising enough, but more so, he left no epitaph, the least you would expect from a writer. In retrospect, perhaps he was the smarter one, for I know othersl who have spent countless hours trying to devise the perfect epitaph, knowing…
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WRITTEN ON WATER
Tomorrow this poem will most assuredly no lnger be here, though when during the night it will slip away, never again to be seen, I don’t know or perhaps it will return in a form I would not recognize, re-crafted by the hand of an unseen editor. It may take on a meaning unfamiliar, or…
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FUTURE HISTORY
The history of modern literature, at least to those who purport to create it, is inextricably tied up with technology. The quill and inkwell ceded only reluctantly to the fountain pen and ballpoint. Foolscap was affixed to corkboard by countless pushpins, but one wasn’t a teal writer until one stuck in the sole of your…
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NEXT QUESTION
It was a short questionnaire, and he wasn’t sure why they had chosen him to answer, or for that matter, who they were. He was one to follow rules, so he sat down to complete it, they, whoever they were, said it would only take fifteen minutes. “Who is the one poet you would want…
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THE CANNERY, LATE INTO THE NIGHT
The cannery, long before it was a mall, sat on the verge of the bay bellowing steam into the night sky shrouding the stars in a gauze blanket, listening to the braying of the harbor seals pleading for the morning’s dross to be returned to the bay waters. The otters lie on their backs peering…
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EROTHANATOS Vol. 3, No. 3
Just yesterday Erothanatos (from India) released its issue number 3 of volume 3, a collection of poets from several countries. I was honored to have seven poems appear in this issue and you can find them here: https://www.erothanatos.com/v3i3n10 But if you don’t have the time, one of the included poems was: In a Prior Life…
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SINGLE CUT
Words have geographic homes and here old favorites seem ill at ease, fitting poorly into thoughts that demand their presence. I use them regardless, but we both know that they will hide their shadings, but in a world where words are the last option, we both know that I have no alternative but to turn…
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VERBIS, VERBIS, VERBIS
Whatever you do, do not open the closet in the back room. If you do, what would happen would rival a scene from countless bad comedies. Things pent up within would come rushing forth, a tidal wave that would certainly engulf you and leave you wishing you had never laid a hand on the closet…
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WITH PEN IN HAND
You never read the ultimate autobiography which doesn’t exist unless you live in an Oulipian world. You can write up to the moment Of your death, and we would, if begrudgingly, conceded the last moments incompleteness, but you cannot write a true and complete autobiography without falling into the recursive abyss where everything that you…
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TRIANGULATION
He says that foremost Mao Zedong was a poet, and knew that all poetry must at some level be political, must incite the reader to rebel against complacency. I say that Zhao Zhenkai wrote as Bei Dao as the ultimate act of rebellion, sacrificing his very identity. He says that I am anchored by the…
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an old writer and his words 