Who decided what jobs we would get? Was there a vote or was it done by lottery? Did the oligarchy or the plutocracy of beforehand have its usual effect? Did old souls get to pay $10 more for first seatsRead more…
the time of ramen
Swirling pennants raised in celebrations no one understands.Patterned silks embroidered with elegant nonsense,characters from an uninvented language.Signifying without meaning,distinction without difference,heralds of cancer or cure,signals of madness advancing and retreating,finding fisherman on the rocks,well-intentioned speakers out of their depths.Maybe theRead more…
As-Yet Unspoken
Round river stone a Pleistocene cannonball.Slender-fronded fern, diminished but identical tothe 3-story trees that shaded the dinosaurs,tight-fisted palm a thousand miles fromthe desert, thrusting high and comfortable in the company of grass. Unwitting, we participate in a vast, silentinheritance ofRead more…
What I did not do
I did not move back to Ireland, get involved in politics, buy and remodel a terminally quaint house, and rename it something Celtic, seeding the yard with guard geese.I did not take a job out of college making 90 grandRead more…
I want you want
We are in York – old and newcity wall a thousand years older than my countryI want maps and phone-ahead bedsand Zagat ratings that say nothing condescendingly“American” You want ghost tours led byfake-accent Dickens castoffsand Yorkshire pudding with“Real American Chili”.YouRead more…
The inevitable molestation drama
Clear afternoon and no one on the road.Not 3 am abandoned,occupied like a teenager in chemistry.Like when Jimmy-my-lab-partnerhugged me so fiercely at the end blue eyes hidden in my shoulderas much wanting in my flesh asblackberries among the brambles. TheRead more…
wandered out of topic
I’ve done it again – wandered abruptly into or out of topic like the summer wanders out of seasonand my 39th year wandered into difficulty and scarcity and a serious kind of non-fun.Is it always in the rearview that weRead more…
the profit of time
“I learned nothing was safe or certain – least of all desire”She moaned from 6 feet and 50 years ago in blackand white in the old play that should not have been adapted forstage much less screen. The pronouncement wasRead more…
Message to go on
Be welcome to the changing. You don’t have to do…anything. Just be this softness bringing color. Dont’ reach out to change the world. Do your work to purify yourself. Cultivate the clear, shining body. Be at peace with who youRead more…
Be that
Every word I know has been used up – like metaphor. Each sadness that arises feels thin, past gone. There is no sweetness in the morning. There is no end to the sea or black rock running secret beneath itRead more…