• IT WILL WAIT

    I’ve finally given up the internal debateabout whether to turn the phone offduring the night, no longer worryingthat I would miss a critical call.I have lived more than long enoughto know that the only calls that comein the heart of the night are thoseannouncing a disaster, a crisis ormost often, recently, another death.I know now…


  • IT’S GREEK TO ME

    They would deny it, of course,just as their progeny do today,but so many of the ills of this agecan be laid at the feet of the Greeks.Two of their inventions have led usinto the hellscape we call thisabnormal world in which we live.The first, of course, wasthe invention of politics, politikathe Greeks labeled it,and aloneit…


  • AND TO YOU WE LEAVE . . .

    Of course we did not heedthe warnings, what did they know,and anyway we were sure we had won. History is a poor teacher, thatmuch we have demonstrated againand yet again, lessons never learned. It is how we got here, how wehave no clear path to leave here,things assumed lying in ruin around us. We are…


  • MY RABBI (PART 1)

    If you ask why I am a BuddhistI will tell you there are a myriadof possible reasons, choose one,or take this one, it fits nicely. I am in college, pulling my gradesup to mediocre, thoughts of medicinegone, law only faint on a distant horizona master’s degree away. I visit my childhood rabbi, a manwho has…


  • HERE TO THERE

    It ran, got me from point Ato point B, often with a fewstarts and stops, alwaysbegrudging, and a ghastlyshade of yellow that helpedexplain why I could afford itin the fist place. The windshield wipers diedperiodically, so I avoidedrain when possibleor accepted a soakedor frozen arm when not. Eventually the topof the carburetor came loosebut Double…


  • TODAY

    Today we want very much to praybut words fail us yet again, and we doubtGod would hear our entreaty anyway,since this is a disaster of our own making. This is the problem of free will, as so manydiscovered across Europe during the secondof the wars to end all wars, as did the peopleof Hiroshima and…


  • POWER

    In my dreams, I haveinfinte power and a hintof omniscience one minuteand am impotent, deafand dumb the next,and there is no predictingwhich moment willbe which or whena shift will suddenly happen. I generally stay outof trouble, and when disasterlooms, and I am powerless,I can awaken, resetthe projector and try again,although I do havea nagging fear…


  • BARGING IN

    It would help, she said, if you would stop imagining your life as a barge moving slowly down the Mississippi River, one in an endless procession, following like so many lemmings looking without hope of finding a cliff. Yes, she adds, from time to time one may break free, it happens but you have to…


  • ARMAGEDDON

    There are a group of them who stare at the sky knowing it is coming launched on its course at the beginning of time which has no beginning. Some say it will be soon others are less certain when but all accept without question its inevitability, and wonder what will remain in its aftermath, seas…