Now and Then

I am looking at a family photo album , pictures of me as a child among the dead. My parents are dead, my grandparents are dead, my aunt and uncle are dead, my boyhood dog Frisky is dead. They were alive when the pictures were taken. I am alive but older now than they...

Military Weapons

Automatic rifles were not invented for accuracy. Ask the Russian Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov. Ask the American Eugene Morrison Stoner. Automatic weapons were invented for efficiency. Military efficiency. Mass killing on the battlefield. In civilian hands, they...

Gun Violence

Gun violence is a tautology Violence is the purpose of gun. Gun violence is equivalent to food nutrition. Nutrition is the chief purpose of food. Violence is the chief purpose of guns. A gun incapable of violence is a toy gun. The rationale for guns is killing....

Unfolding

We met as folded strangers letters addressed to each other’s names tightly enveloped eased open creased paper smoothed flat stories read then written on our unfolding lives

The Seagull

The seagull was dying. The bird knew it. I knew it. I wondered if there was something I could do, some intervention I could place between the gull and death. The seagull was not considering repair. With open eyes, smooth feathers, tucked feet the bird watched what had...

Gravid Cezanne

Celebrating Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) Cezanne, out with his easel near Aix-en-Provence, painted gravity with a light brush, coaxing round density out of apples, the angular geometry of men playing cards, mountain massiveness pitted against civilized sight. Sensation is...