It must be liberating to be up at this hour, running about in rags through the park, kicking at phantoms and flies, stretching under the watchful gaze of the few still functioning street lamps. I look down from behind glass and over the wall and long to steal a bit of his freedom. What would …
Category Archives: Words
I forget.
We are made up of our experiences, what happens to us, what we happen. That is why memory is a door. We enter, we exit. The murderer, who can forget his acts of violence, is no longer a murderer. When I see her standing there weeping, painting her young face caged, I walk over and …
fault line
There is a fault line running between my shoulders and the base of my skull. This would not be a problem, it is not active; except for the many people living alongs its invisible divide, setting up homes, planting trees, playing cooperative games; except for those times I stomp from this place to another, hand …
Incomplete…March 9 2011
A staircase always goes down, never up. Winged bats and books snatching up dreams as they pass by And you would think it was a hunt But it’s not. Accidental destruction, we have to make up stories To tell us otherwise. Stories, fiction, blurry tapestry on blank walls all around. I hear the huat huat of …
No Snow
Those crystalline ornaments I knew as a child Don’t cover up anything in this dry, hateful heat; No merry-lolling in these streets— Somewhere, a deep-throated warbler, insatiate, sighs. This is what I was told would happen —harbinger Of clogged cloaca and those unfinished nightmares That disappoint and leave one bare Before new day’s start and …
Thoughts from a Convent in Sucre
All of these religious men hanging upon walls. Without words, lines, splashes of colour what legacy, what greatness is theirs? We err. Impacted by the loud, the colourful, the luminous; stoneflies; we have no say. A philosopher is a harp lulling us to sleep. A priest, a splinter of flax. And I, well, what am I? I …
Character Sketching
As a man, I cannot compare the revelation of a character to the giving of birth. As a father, however, I can speak of the joy and pain of watching these characters grow up, a piece of myself woven into each one. The seed of the world around me, the people close and far that I …
Better I be silent
This desk is an amalgam of children’s wishes, personal reminders, literary motivators and religious tradition. Like its cluttered drawers and scattered shelves, these four components attempt to provide organization and separation to elements of life that are inseparable. My life is a study in separation, division, secrecy. Beneath the clutter is a simplicity that, with …
What he does, every day
In the morning, evading echt, he stands onefooted in a dark room. When the world awakes, he puts his foot down and steps in to the light. This, he does every day. The dark room, it is draped with symbolism, a goldflame so long an ubiety that whatever it might have stood for is forgotten. Until …
The Writer
The ménage and messuage of the writer are constantly changing. Once, open, empty so thoughts echo off unseen boundaries returning as subtle, novel suggestions. Again, occlusive mine-shafts, crowded foreign tongues vying for a madman’s reason. It is not a process: there is no beginning or end, birth-death. It is not a moment. It is a …