• JUST STOP

    “The problem,” she said, “the reasonyou cannot sleep through the night,is simple and easily fixed if youonly follow my advice for which,as you know, you are paying dearly.”This was what I had been waitingto hear after so many therapy sessions.I begged her to go on, thinking whatI would do with the money Ihad been spending…


  • TOKYO NIGHT SCENES

    Scene 1Just off Shinjuku chuo koen North,nestled in the courtyardof the Green Tower, hidesJyoufuji Temple, serenein the first light of morning,the sun dancing off the ceremonialbell its striker poised, as ifwaiting to catch the windand to it sing its resonant song.Inside, the prayer mats awaitthe first supplicants of the daybelow the sandalwood altarand above it…


  • MESA

    This nightin cold moonlightearth rises upclouds float downghosts walk the margin.Old ones singnow shall be thenolder ones still singthen shall be onceto wolf and coyote.In this season of north windssun’s heat barrenspirits rise updreams descendman lies interspersed.Women singwe are bearersmen singwe are sowers. First appeared in Dipity, Vol. 3, April 2023


  • WRITING MY STORY

    With the stroke of a pen,they enabled me to write the story,gave a framework on whichI could hang all mannerof dreams and assumptions,inviting a search I neverquite got around to making. I wandered the beachesof Estoril in my dreams,stalked the avenues of Lisbon,looking for a familiar face,but found only ghosts. With the stroke of a…


  • HOME, NIGHT

    Living in a bamboo grove, she said,is very much like living in an old house. Look up at noon, into the canopyand imagine you see rays of lightpiercing the ill-thatched roof. Listen to the growling winds of autumnand hear the ghosts of the old housemaking their way up creaking stairs. And when you truly find…


  • CHILD OF GHOSTS

    I am a child of ghosts, my parents adopted and birth, all visit me, but only in my dreams, for ghosts prefer the reality that dreams allow. Some say that dreams are not real, but they live in the mind as do every other reality I experience each day, my senses merely inexact lenses for…


  • OF THEE I SING

    My ancestors stole your tongue and left you mute in a world you could not grasp.                                            Now as I search for words of forgiveness I can find none, for my voice is clogged with…


  • ALLEGORY

    The sooty snow blankets the fields blowing like a still ocean off the precipice of the horizon. The clouds of ash tinged cotton hug the earth a blanket under which all life finds refuge from the ghosts of winter. To the wanderer which the cave mouth which the cave?


  • THREE VIEWS: WINTER

    the ghosts of morning cast their spell over the sun joyous winter smiles   first snow of winter white coated Buddha dreaming of chrysanthemums   each flake different a billion unique moments a Buddhist season