“Gas stations at night can sometimes be weird places.” …………………………………………………. —Ruchira Paul, 5/7/22 Gas Stations Can Sometimes Be Weird at Night: Circa 1958 While in HS I pumped gas at a station in town owned by an amiable, but besotted old Italian guy who sat in his desk-chair next to the register, feet crossed upon…

. “I read the news today, oh boy!” .. The Protocols of Cause Grotesques are at the door we cook in our own juices thinking we’re immune from fire and ice thinking we still have time to burn we can’t imagine we’ll be stewed in our own vices because we have excuses But the protocols…

War & Weekends I’m writing from a list of prompts in an exercise for loosening the tight grip of uncertainty of mind in an effort to knock the chocks from under its big wheels to let the thing roll yesterday’s was war, which I skipped, never having been there but in books and other vicarious…

Ménage à Trois isn’t it a miracle that three atoms have combined in chemical love to become the slippery substance of that which both bears and wrecks ships, of bays that breed and shelter life —sustain it, of that essential stuff of bodies, of billows of mist that rain and surge through taps, of glaciers that…

I . Me .We so much depends upon the tale we tell ourselves, words have the force of love or death, they can raise or raze. In fact, the typhoon of a single letter, incessantly said, can ruin nations the simplest vertical stroke “I” or its Russian solo “Я” not to mention the tiny bleating…

—on scanning the news feed this morning: Stasis—a collateral effect of nuclear power We face the conundrum of dealing with Tony Soprano. Tony, you know, will stop at nothing while you, being disinclined to fire a nuclear warhead (when Tony has some too) are left with the fist of cutting off his credit. This is…

“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.” —Daniel 7:9 William Blake’s Mandala in Blake’s split mandala Being asymmetrically stoops…

“Parrots, songbirds and hummingbirds all learn new vocalizations. The calls and songs of some species in these groups appear to have even more in common with human language, such as conveying information intentionally and using simple forms of some of the elements of human language such as phonology, semantics and syntax. And the similarities run…

That Came, Not Chosen 7 a.m. sungold flings photons from mountaintop across the river yesterday’s snow clings to a hedge of arbor vitae’s shadowgreen just as Mom’s flour dusted the tools of her art upon the table sifter, spatula, cups and spoons as if a painting of an arctic fable her baked art emerges from…

Lush Misunderstanding —of an interview with Jane Goodall _____________________________________ life from dying comes —life after life: a ballet of treed chimps, a great defining roar, a thin thread lost where are you, father? (a name I never called you, I called you, Dad) yet there it is: father half-ground of my issue, half-ground of my being,…

“I don’t think I ever was a child.”                     –Coleman Hawkins, top sax jazzman Jazzman Said I don’t think I ever was a child Was I a child? I don’t think— If I ever was a child I’d know.  …..I don’t. I don’t even know, jazzman said,…

Autistic —for Danny, 1949-1976 When you caught that bird in flight, that was a wild moment, the reflex of it, as if you’d had the mind and eyes of a hawk, as if in your world, mysterious to us all, mother father sisters brothers— as if in that world you flew above less bewildered than…

Having Coffee i’m having coffee i’m dreaming I’m having coffee with Whistler’s mother i’m out of the frame to the left meeting her gaze i’m scratching a knuckle with my nose i’m not listening to my wife while gazing out a window i’m imagining our small distant sun rising over the horizon of Neptune i’m having coffee   —paper…

Uroboros new year, end day of a beginning, two limits of an endless rope, sunup/sundown, the day we split infinity that lazy 8 napping on its side as time goes by, the day we draw a deep breath in belief that its undulant line may really be broken regardless of the will of a universe…

Temporal Christmas the verge of something new— solstice, sunrise, a comet coming through, sometimes it seems that angels tend, stars align, low meets high—- even ass and oxen gain a sense that mutual otherness has been pretense, a tale begins that glorifies the plain, low things are magnified: a snowball rolls through time, gathers rituals, books, saints, gains velocity, and multitudes…

Gabriel’s Mad Ave. Apocalyptic Horn …. “I’m still dwelling on how ironic all the feverish proclamations of capitalism …. are going to look someday.”  —Justin E. H. Smith, Philosopher I’m through with dumpster dinners at the corner of Wall Street and New I’m so unsold by the Coke sign’s faded blush that thrusts from desiccated…

Woke up, fell out of bed, Dragged a comb across my head Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, And looking up I noticed (it) was late ………………—John Lennon, A Day in the Life Mystical Fun Jim Culleny 9/14/16

A Question of Necessity “Can you tell me a certain thing that is a moral fact?” is a specious question because the fact of the thing exists as something essential to the survival of homo sapiens in creating civilization, though civilization does not always live up to the necessity of its essential thing.(the root of what…

“Facts are surprisingly delible things.” ………….— Bill Bryson, author “Trump won.” ……….…— Fox Skews Facts Are Delible facts are not indelible after all— imagine that now U S headspace is one of delibility, if such a word exists —but of course it may, nothing moors every word to dictionaries: fresh definition embraced, case closed. now…

Drinking It All In a long way up Bray Road past the point where the first of two small brooks cross beneath it came to me in a new way that you and I are still breathing four decades after we met at the threshold of the unknown, the part that comes after now, and…