daily mud when I’m down and most proneto fall into the mire of meaningI resort to the stars as ifthey might pin a ribbonon my chest: a rewardof understanding to come;the wars of fidelity won —as if I might winthe Medal of the Unknown’s Honor for piety instead of for keeping my head in the…

Band of Saints still in his gardenlighthe apologized to his sunflowers promising things wouldchangehe swore by all that’s right that he would end hiswarwith the earth that brings them forth on stalks thick asthievesupon which bright heads turn from northleavesopen as palms of supplicating hands in rows of six foot stems awalldense as the barnside…

Auto-auction if I should give account of all the days that shame meI’d be shamed indeed —especially by those daysthat shame me by my own account the noose that one gets in was once a collarits no mystery how the world goes rounda penny for my soul, why not a dollar? by Jim Culleny1/21/2010

Matryoshka BoxesAh, to think outside the box.But this box is too big —more thanlight years across (limitless in fact)so thinking out there has been a problemand (with the way it’s been)seems to be pretty much impossible A thought that big(a thought outside this box)would be divine To think outside this boxrequires a perspective well beyondthe…

“(Physicist) Stephen Hawking … showed that black holes were not completely black but could leak radiation …” Crumb of Light Black holes are not completely black.One physicist says they leak lightso even in deepest spacewhere nothing breatheswhere you couldn’t be more alonewhere stillness is not peace but icewhere distance between entitiesmakes the idea of neighborhood…

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” —Herman Melville; Moby Dick“All politicians are loco.” —Roshi Bob (with a tip o' the hat to Tip O'Neill) Whatever Floats Your Pequod Call me Ishmael—no, on second thought don’t Call me Lazarus becauseI now have a second skin—the old one…

“Shu” is the single teaching of Confucius and “jen”it’s counterpart. Shu means reciprocity; jen is love,kindness and goodness. T’ien is heaven. –Confucius and the Teaching of Goodness Shu and Jen Goodness came like two heartsand sat beside me. My name isShu, said she In the window two birds flewThe window was open when,pointing, Shu said,…

A Sprawl of Cemeteries Blood for blood is in our bonesthe bass line of a perpetual requiem Justice says carpe diemto sooth the killed. As expectedthe living hoot and gloat, or wailasking Why did it have to be him? Why other arrangementshave not been madein the leaves of good booksso that blood and honor are…

Shell To have only what we need Space to the horizondrawing us out A songbird reminding usthere are more things in heaven and earth The hawk that stalks it—a taste of temporailty A rock on which to sit when sweat comes;a place to rest and consider the horizon Wild blueberries whose blueness tantalizes;whose juice becomes…

A particle accelerator in the US has shown compelling hints of a never-before-seen particle, researchers say. …………………………………………. –BBC 4/7/2011 More Splintered Than Common SenseHaving heard hints of a never-before-seen particlemy day becomes new;the blue day is fractured further What were small thoughts becomemore pint-sized then the nonsenseof politicians: smaller eventhan the bits of stained tile…

Now I Know What He Meant—I’ll have that done in no time, my father would say.…………………I’m in the midst of a moon(as the Lenape called them)dead center. It’s Thursdaydead center, too, of the weekI’m at the pinpoint of noon poisedprecisely at the day’s fulcrumjust thirty seconds into the minuteat point five Oh! of that second…

Scroll From woodpile to the housea scroll of arabesques in snow ends maybe twenty feetfrom an empty pile of palletsand the steel stake against whichthe first log had been set The trail ends just there at thatcupped crater which marks the spota squirrel beneath a starlit sky had stopped and sat Between the crater and…

A Simple Ontology It may be that a flower’s petalsare held to stems by thoughtand the wind is a counter-thoughtthat plucks petals from stems,shifts them across a fieldand sets them softly upon the grassto repose in contemplative resolutionnext to the notion of a grub-pulling crow For all I know the wind itself may bea palpable…

I have trouble with old picstheir sweet bitternesstheir cutting edgetheir tricks —a daughter’s mittenshung from cuffslaid out in kodachromea taunt of time. Enough. I’d rather mine old nuggetsupturn what’s scatteredin my skull —the gold stick with what my head will hold I do not take nostalgic risksThe photobox stays beneath the bedwith jewel cases of…

Fire in the Brain God is a fire in the brain Nijinsky saidwhich is as close to the truth asanything a dancer might dancewith a bonfire burning in his head God may put you in a trancewith the fluttering of cardinal wingsor with the way the moon looksmounting the mountain’s backon the other side of…

Why Do We Have Heads At All?—on Daniel Lieberman’s The Evolution of the Human Head“The head presents an evolutionary paradox,”says Lieberman, “The roof of the orbitsis the floor of the brain.” And I imagine a roomin which a miracle sponge sits soaking upwhat it means to be alive while other skullsorbit this particular one which,a…

Capela dos Ossos —on a Chruch of Bones, Evora, Portugal We pray in a church of bones in which skulls outline graceful archesof low vaults and whose columns are laddersof stacked femurs. We admire its capitals of craniums It’s walls, unlike the idealizations of Michelangelo, are not fantasies romanced in fresco but the real thing:…

“The only God worth keeping is a God that cannot be kept.The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about.…God is present when I confront You.” * Modern Timesby Jim Culleny ……………………I and Thou (stern and bow)may have plowed from then to now(but can’t make way from now to thenthrough…

Cold Sting Last night under a full moonwith a threat of frostwe threw row covers over the kale We stumbled from a pile near the trackswith bins of river rocks to weigh the covers down Wind waved their white lightnessover the Red Russian and Lacinatoas if we were flagging Nature,signaling Ok, ok, you win again…

Working Their Mojo …..——A random report on a staus quo from the wild west It’s hard to tell if we’re in the midst of a permanent downtickor just in the throes of what used to be labeled a bad trip—or if “going-to-hell-in-a-bucket” is apropos I’ve almost given up wondering if we might eventually enter an…