Category: Yo Ivanhoe

  • Not A Creature Was Stirring

    I began by telling him how dissatisfied I was with the idea that life must be a lesser thing than we were capable of imagining it to be. I had the feeling that the same thing happened to nearly everybody I knew and whom I did not know. No sooner was their youth, with the…

  • It's The Same Old Song

    Yes, it is. But what song is it? That is your assignment for today, class. What is the theme song of the 2005 Minnesota Twins? Possible suggestions, as of 5:30 this morning: “Too Much of Not Enough”? “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”? “You Ain’t Goin’ No Where”? “My Favorite Waste of Time”? “Bases Were…

  • Take Another Look

    A bad night lies ahead And a new day beyond that– A simple sequence, but hard To remember in the right order. —Mark Jarman, “Psalm: The New Day” Twice I woke up tonight and wandered to the window. And the lights down on the street, like pale omission points, tried to complete the fragment of…

  • My Back Pages: No Man Should Ever

    No man should ever find himself in the fish-belly gray light of dawn sitting hunched on the floor with a pen paralyzed in his fingers listening to Jimmy Scott. No man should ever eat plain white rice and corn chips for breakfast. No man should ever sit at four a.m., raking the soiled carpet with…

  • Some Things You Know About Your Heart, Some Others You Don't

    —Abel Pann You know how your heart moves, how it lurches and staggers and sways like a beaten bell in your chest. You know how it sounds: That sound. Those noises. That familiar music. The rattle of a cold slate shingle banging up against your ribs. The squeak of its eraser at work somewhere just…

  • The Fire That Never Says, 'Enough'

    …what is it we are all doing, what is it we are about, pray tell? And why are we gathered here? —Raymond Carver, “All My Relations” I’m on my way with dust in my shoes, free of mythology: Send books back to their shelves, I’m going down into the streets. I learned about life from…