Italy 1940

A ghost of dead Romans. A strange tree flowers and is cut down. Straight sidewalks, ancient dust. A bell rings and stops ringing. Drums resist being beaten but are beat anyway. The sticks rape the flesh of the drums. An old rabbi begins to grasp what is happening. The...

A Fish Drowns Opposite a Man

A man sinks beneath the water immersed in useless oxygen, and the fish flops on the beach, surrounded by wasted air. Death to the man is life to the fish and life to the man is death to the fish. Yet, each are elemental breathers, distilling oxygen from water,,...

U-turn

the whole world the hole whirled toward reversals  a retreat a rally, a sally a recoiling finale  

Found in Translation

I learn from past centuries. And why not? They knew a lot. I am not bigoted, not against the dead, not against quickless bodies, not against minds soaked with unfamiliar alphabets. The long gone teachers still teach; Ovid –  things are and are not what they...

Baptism

I was ten and new, out with town boys, my knowledgeable friends, singing exquisitely lewd songs, under the echoing Wolf Creek bridge, songs about girls and beer, things we knew little about but didn’t know we knew little and wanted to know more. We were comrades in...