by Warren Gaston | Jul 17, 2022
All of my life I have lived with the word ‘next’ firmly before me. An open door, a time and place to go and do whatever comes – next. And now I wonder, as I could have wondered all along, is this the last time or the next time. I will dare eat Prufrock’s peach,...
by Warren Gaston | Jul 1, 2022
Canto I Let’s say you woke up one morning to a world completely to your liking. You liked the news, yesterday’s, the week before, the year, centuries, and quite likely you will like tomorrow, aka the future, and the future’s future after that. To your horror you...
by Warren Gaston | Jun 9, 2022
I am sitting at my desk writing checks to pay bills, as the kitten we foster plays with my feet, tugs at my pant cuffs, needles her way up my leg with hypodermic claws. I brush her away from the game she has made of my extremities. “My body is not a toy,” I say in an...
by Warren Gaston | Jun 8, 2022
“Do your work,” I said to the candle as I lit the wick. “Give warmth and light,” ‘I cannot,” replied the candle, “without losing myself in the flame.” “Do your work, candle,” I repeated as the candle melted away. “Do your work, man,” was the last thing I...
by Warren Gaston | Jun 7, 2022
Feeling barely felt. Thinking barely thought. Saying barely said. Doing barely done. My day is filled with partial accomplishments. Being remains, the only success. . In distilled moments I am grateful,...
by Warren Gaston | May 31, 2022
My daughters assume I am thinking, when in the early morning they see me sitting in my garden chair doing nothing. I don’t blame them for thinking I am thinking. That’s what it looks like. If someone is awake doing nothing, they must be thinking. But appearances can...
by Warren Gaston | May 23, 2022
Will Shakespeare ever be dead? And if so, how will it happen? When the last actor is bored with ancient Rome’s politics? When the last page of the Tempest is incinerated in a forest of fire? Or when the last reader of Hamlet is too weak to dust ash from his eyes?...
by Warren Gaston | May 6, 2022
I do not believe in miracles, not in interventions where some divinity suspends the laws of nature temporarily satisfy my want or need. Nor do I believe in fate? I do not believe some future-making mechanism is determining my life. Life is a complexity of...
by Warren Gaston | May 5, 2022
“You could timidly explore the coasts of Africa to the south, but going west there was nothing except fear, the unknown, not ‘our sea’ but the Sea of Mystery, Mare Ignotum.” Carlos Fuentes,The...
by Warren Gaston | May 3, 2022
This is the story of a long second, not a minute, too long, or an hour, too much plot, too many characters, too much dialogue, between and within. What can happen in a second, you wonder. Not much. But if you pause going forward, if linger and wait, n o t i c e, you...
