All men should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. —James Thurber We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk … Read more
But couldn’t it all have been a little nicer, as my mother’d say. Did it have to kill everything in sight, did right always have to be so wrong? I know this body is impatient. I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind. Yet I loved, I love. I want no sentimentality. I … Read more
It may be that alien animals are attracted to individuals possessed of certain psychological traits. We can surmise that energy-seeking entities were around that night, and that the poacher’s blood would have met their needs. Scattered work. Magic of the city. Web of shopping. Antonio Villas Boas had blood extracted from a clean incision just … Read more
So, then: Even after all that impenetrable darkness and the long, bruising fall, he would live, and emerge gulping and incredulous into a world painted over in a flat coat of muted gray. In the old happily-ever-after version of such a tale, a man in the grips of blind despair would be saved by an … Read more
Why don’t you begin by telling me about the dreams you said have been troubling you? I’m locked out of my house and can’t find the keys. I am walking around in an unfamiliar city and everyone I encounter is speaking a language I can’t understand. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize … Read more
It was like this. It was this way. Here was the way it was. This is how things stood: Silently. Still. At attention. That was one moment and unfortunately this world is all about one moment to another. In the next moment everything was swirling and it was as if I was a plastic man … Read more
Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? —Stanley Kunitz, from “The Layers” Two days and two nights the tiny ship sailed into the great lake. Just after sunset on the third day the ship … Read more
God says if you love me you will make me Beef Wellington. Even though you are a vegetarian. We will go bow hunting for angels. Aim for the heart, even though they do not have hearts. They are most vulnerable when they are playing the harp. I hate harps. They keep me up when I … Read more
—Abel Pann But when he came home there was no one to tell what he had seen –and if he picked the flowers and brought them home in his hands, there was no one to give them to. And when at evening, past the dark blue shape of a far-off island, the sun sank under … Read more