• PAYMENT DUE

    He only wanted to be forgotten, heput on mask after mask seekingthe anonymity that celebrity denied.There he was satanic, freely condemnedfor thoughts he shared that gratedon their sense of self-worth, their egos,and here almost angelic, if not to betrusted, no one knowing which he was realand which a carefully crafted veneer.Still he found neither solace…


  • APP-LICATION DENIED

    I can still recall my grandmother saying,whenever she thought I should be outsiderather than sitting in my room with a book,that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jewsdid not believe in the devil and that,in any event my hands were engagedin holding the book and turning pages.I…


  • THE DOTTED LINE

    Now that I have discoveredmy Catholic and Protestant ancestorsI know it is time to considerwhat hell must be like. I know it is not fire and brimstone,that went the way of old lorewhen the Impressionists came along. So I imagine Hell must bevery much like getting caughtlooking at the new carsin the showroom while you…


  • NEATNESS COUNTS

    Ice, he said, is clearly an inventionof Satan, the ice cube a scaled downversion of that corner of hell of whichno one ever speaks, so little known. And stop and think, we got by wellfor eons without a cube of ice, unlesswith blade we chipped it froma nearby glacier or left water outin the dead…


  • THE QUESTION

    If my mother was here she would ask me what I have to say for myself. Just this once, I would remain silent, for there is nothing that needs saying and she would be certain that if there were she should be the one to say it, but silence would drive her mad. So perhaps…


  • RAISON

      There is a reason – there must be a reason for everything, that is just how things are supposed to be, how we decree them. And when things are events, we are at liberty to tell them to comply with our direction. If they fail, then we consign them to miracles or the work…