From my own writing

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.
--Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer, Nobel laureate, (1904-19991)

I've been asked how to become a writer. The simplicity of the answer disappoints some people, who are expecting a profound insight handed down from on high. The way to become a writer is to write. Then write some more. And more. And more. Fill pages, notebooks, and volumes with words. Whether or not you've got anything good to say and are any good at saying it will become clear as you write more. You'll begin to get a feel for whether you're cut out for it or not on your own. If you're not, don't be disappointed--it's not for everyone. In fact, it's not even for some people out there who are writers.

I've filled up a few thousand pages or so myself. One day, I decided to leaf through the notepads at the bottom of the stack and pick out some things more or less at random, to give you a glimpse of what a writer's working process consists of. Below are some of the results of my culling. Some of it is really good, some of it is really bad, and some of it is passable, though not spectacular. It is in different styles and, toward the end, turns into jottings from the notecards I used to use before I got a Palm PDA. Some fragments are abandoned works, some are works that I plan to expand some day, and some are here just to remind myself about what I'm going to work on in the future. In any case, it's worth at least what you paid for it.

Living Hours - A sample chapter from my translation of Las horas vivas by Mónica de Neymet. The full novel should be out sometime before I die.
Opus for Four - Where this site got its name. It actually made sense when this site was only about Dada and the Art Of Noise. Now that the site has expanded around the midsection, the title has become somewhat of a fossil, but its spirit remains.
Effigy - The beginning of a new ending to The Great Gatsby. I was disappointed in Fitzgerald's taking the easy way out and simply killing off Gatsby, instead of writing of his psychological decay. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it, so here I am. I think Dostoevsky or Kafka could do a wonderful job of it, but they haven't written very much since they died.
Nimbus - If you've read Kafka's "The Judgement", you'll see some similarities. However, this was written months before I began reading Herrn Franz's stories. I get the same feeling reading this as I do when I look at Dali's Persistence of Memory. [Yes, the dialogue--what tiny bit of it there is--is melodramatic. It's supposed to be: this is an anti-love story that is, of course, bred from its opposite.]
The Instant, Empty Eternity - Portions of a not-quite-completed postmodern hallucinatory romance.
Meconnaissance - If the Underground Man had an affinity for woodland. However, there is no conscious effort to emulate Dostoevsky's character. I noticed the parallel after re-reading Notes. I did, however, add some textual revision that emphasized the parallel.
Gentle Narcissus - With the exception of Opus for Four, this is my favorite poem. It seems connected a bit with Nimbus.
A Rose in the Snow - The end product was nothing like the conception for it that was in my mind. I'll probably end up tearing it completely down and rebuilding it from scratch. I leave it in to demonstrate just how difficult it can be to transform a conception into words.
Potpourri - Unsystematically assorted ideas to be elaborated upon in the future, ideas for stories and poems to come, aphorisms, and a few observations.

Opus for four

In November-when it's always grey and bleak,
And the sun can't even muster a peek-
The four get together,
All too mindful of the coming weather;
No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon.
As the cold will set in soon
Four heads for mouths, twice as many ears
Talk and listen of the time that nears
With a stranglehold on the past
And how to make the future last
And nothing gets done.
Kyrie eleison.

But that's the point, isn't it?
This staccato, scissorlike wit-
From an exuberant Anne comes the wail
As she turns to Jasper, who's drinking ale
And talking with Marcel as only he can.
All eyes at the table are fixed upon Tristan
As he snips and clips and then rips together
A new puddle of poetry and asks them whether,
After all these years, he is still charming.
The whole scene is dreadfully disarming.
And nothing gets done.

Effigy

Just as autumn settled, where cold sets in and leaves die and fall off their trees, he was changing seasons as well. His world was changing colors, and pieces began to fall. Soon he would be left with nothing but a barren, frigid landscape, the bare branches of his once ripe dream offering no protection against the winds of those five years. He shivered.

One last time in the pool, the first and last time of the quickly fading summer. The day, which had been exceedingly hot, quickly began to cool as a late summer storm appeared over the horizon. In the distance, almost directly over the docks across the bay, dark gray clouds began their ominous trek across the sky. For now, the eerie calm that precedes the worst storm cast its pallor over the surroundings.

He was not dressed for this weather, as mercurial as it had been. Only a few hours before it had been an inferno, but now that fire had died as if doused with water. Obstinately he remained in the pool, as he had not even dipped his toe into it the entire year and he was intent upon getting in at least one time.

"Sir, will you be getting out soon? Shall I bring your robe," the servant asked, standing on the patio steps. He received nothing in reply. He took a few steps closer, believing that perhaps he was too distant to be heard. As he saw his employer's eyes, he instinctively stopped and stepped back quickly. His master was not dead, but perhaps should have been.

It would have been so much more comforting, in fact, so much more humane had he been. It is not death that is the ultimate horror; it is, rather, the throes of death that are so abhorrent. The vacancy in a dead man's eyes is a serene one.

But his, his held that same haunted expression that compels one to shut the lids on the victim's eyes.

All of this was what eventually opened me up to him. When he first invited me to his party, I refused immediately. I have no time for rich people. His messenger was so overwhelmingly polite and unassuming that I ran him off my lawn, meager as it was. It was not until I saw all the lights and the people and the music that I invited myself. I had to find out what he had in his past to bury that he would have to create such a commotion to do it. Like a good criminal, he left a trail of clues for the detective. When I discovered his murder, he endeared himself to me in a way no other has.

The effete simplicity of the very rich and very poor, their blindness that was their claim to nobility--sometimes willful and pernicious but usually callow and innocent--drove me from the Midwest in the same manner as one flees the knell after a funeral. Not necessarily the town from which I was delivered, but rather the Midwest as an idea. Among the vast, flowing expanses of wheat, one grew as they did, only to be cut in a short time. It is one of life's paradoxes that a fertile mind does not belong in a fertile land.

Nevertheless, winter was not a desolate affair there, as it is here, but instead was a time for one's thoughts to catch up to the events of the preceding season. Autumn was a time for trees to shed their leaves in order to grow greener ones the next year, a little taller and more bountiful. In the spring, the children climb them with the irrepressible and inane energy of youth, scampering among the wooden labyrinth randomly from branch to branch until a limb breaks. Hurled down to earth, they run home to have mother then to their wounded arm and, more importantly, their shattered pride. None of the other children are daunted by this event; witnessing it gives some of them a curiosity about the tree itself, others question the skill or wisdom of the climber. The adults place their chairs underneath it, sipping their drinks in its shade as they chatter about the newly budding flowers or the upcoming crop.

Wheat grows here endlessly, a vicious cycle of chaff begetting chaff. The scythe never ceases its harvest, but the chaff always prevails by virtue of sheer volume. I will never be a farmer here: too hot in the summer, too cold in winter, and always too arid. Somehow, although thoroughly landlocked growing up, it is my nature to live on water.

This is how I ended up on the bay in New York. I would rather be in a place where a lie is merely someone else's truth, liquid and circumstantial, than in my homeland, where truth is granite and time itself gathers dust. Rocks are eroded away, reduced to sand, fit only for people to walk upon. Water, however, can carve canyons, transport people to better places, keep one from dying of thirst. This is why I consider myself one of the few honest people I have ever known.

It has been two years since I've seen him. It has been much longer since he's seen himself. He was no longer who he would be, but he could never again be who he was. He had long since ceased to be an individual, but it was some time before he became a type. He was a refugee from St. Petersburg. His dreams could not be earned, yet he could not simply buy them. It was his money, however, that ensured that they would be with him forever, a noxious green mold on the bread of his psyche. His dreams were unfit for even vermin to nibble on.

For a short time, I was tempted to feel sorry for him, but one cannot rectify one mistake by deliberately making another. He did not deserve to be insulted by me. He did, after all, do something that most do not and I will not: he remained true to something. Admittedly, it was to her and not to himself, but as he had intertwined her into his image of himself and his creation created him, he, in the end, was actually true to himself. Rather than pitiable, this made his failure noble--quixotic, but noble. This, his only positive quality, was infinitely redeeming and alone forced me to continue our association.

...

He was beyond needing a doctor--only a coroner would have anything to do with him now. I sat with him, though: it was the human, compassionate thing to do. I knew I would be late for work, but something pulled me toward him and away from my duties.

He had just begun, it seemed, to recount the events of the night before when I saw, in the distance, the train meant for me passing by. Checking my old, battered watch, I knew that was the 8:08 meant for me. I was at first surprised that it was going by so early, then I realized that it was much further into the day than I had thought. The sun was already quite high in the sky, but I had failed to notice, so intently was I listening to his story.

I made a motion to go, but suddenly (and quite unrelated to my actions) he made a motion that intimated that he should not be left by himself. He could not be alone without my presence.

Nimbus

They fled up the stairs in a hurried, breathless gallop. In her gleeful terror she was practically dragging him along. It was obvious to him that she needed him to help her get away; it was equally obvious to him that she needed him to have a reason to be escaping. So the whole thing was entirely his fault. He could have stopped it all then. They were not even being chased yet, and probably would not be for a while. There was still time; the act had not yet been discovered. If they went back now, it never would be--it could be buried and permanently hidden. Smiles are most effective as shovels. Today she had suddenly and selfishly committed this sin for herself, but she did it in his name. His murder was a much older one, done so long ago that no one even remembered who the victim was. She was the only one who knew of his guilt, and this was her leverage over him now. In a moment of despair--or was it boredom?--he had confided it to her. He told her because she was so distant from him. She knew so little about him that she would never believe him. When he described how the heart had continued to beat briefly, even after he had twisted his knife in it, she believed him. That was why she kept him around.

None of that mattered to him in any case. He needed her as well. His reasons were just as illogical and even more compelling. That was why it was so important that they get a head start while they could.

At the top of the stairs was a catwalk a hundred, two hundred, a thousand yards long... it was impossible to tell. It extended far beyond his sight. Doors leading to offices of comfortably obscure middle-management rats were on one side. Next to each door was a large glass window. Certainly, there could be no refuge here.

Directly across from them was the only door that was different from the thousands that stretched perpetually down the corridor. Its stern warning prohibited entry by other than a select few "authorized" persons, which gave it an appearance all the more innocuous. The desperate circumstances they found themselves in made them one of the élite now, too, he reasoned. Since nothing worth guarding is ever locked up, it opened as soon as he tried. They flung themselves through with a bit too much vigor, and both hit the wall. As they recovered, she giggled, giddy with shameless excitement.

This side held promise. It was a hallway, and, although it ran parallel with the other interminable side, he could see the end of this one when he squinted and concentrated on looking for it. Large gray pipes ran along each side, carrying steam and hot and cold water to various places. Bundles of electrical wire and fiber optic cable snaked along the walls. It was a maintenance area deep in the bowels of the building. Something about it just wasn't right; he finally realized that it was eerie in its spotlessness. The fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling were clean and white, and kept the corridor well lit. Since relatively few walked these floors, the waxed tile shined as if new, and reflected a sharp image of the lights above. What an odd place to have such an immaculate floor.

Before he allowed this incongruity to grip him fully, she grabbed his arm and they were off running once more. Fear runs with Mercury's swift feet, but it still seemed to take a second less than forever to make it even halfway down. As they ran, she laughed and looked back occasionally to smile at him. She did not notice the man they ran by, working on a stuck valve in a niche off to the side, but he did. Something unsettled him. The man did not even look up to see who was causing all the commotion, but just continued working as if the two of them were not even there. He wondered if so many others have done this already that this was nothing new to this man.

Finally they made it to the end. There was a steel door, which appeared to have been painted recently. This one was locked! How could that be? They had no trouble getting in, but now can't get out! He stepped back and hurled himself into it, but it would not budge. Again he did this. Again and again. His shoulder hurt. He turned and used his other shoulder, and again his body gave the same results. He pounded it with his fists. His hands swelled. He smacked his head into it, over and over again until he became dizzy.

He could no longer go back downstairs. They had to be looking for them by then, so that would not work. All that was left was to sit here, like a monkey, and wait to be apprehended. Defeated, he staggered over to the wall and slid down it. Mother, how could you get me into this?

She put her arms around him and buried her face into his neck. Her laughter was uncontrollable, a feral blend of mania, malice, and compassion. After quite some time, she was able to compose herself enough to blurt out a few sentences.

"When you first confessed you love for me I didn't believe you, and I certainly didn't want to hear it. In the same way one does not believe the news when one hears that their parents have been killed in some horrible accident, I believe. After all, I hardly knew you; why would I--or you for that matter? But when you told me I was a dagger in your heart I recognized a sincerity that could have only been yours. That made me believe you."

The insane laughter that formerly possessed her had made tears stream down her face. After their long treadmill run, they were both sweating. She stood and wiped her face. Kneeling down, she pulled his head into her shoulder and nestled it there.

"Today I realized what you meant. That's why I grabbed you so suddenly and took this risk here now. I see how much you mean to me and how happy I would make you and I want to do that for--"

Behind her, a movement caught his eye. The old man they passed earlier walked by, unlocked the door, and stepped out. He pushed her off and jumped to his feet, scooped her up, and grabbed the door before it closed on them again.

Orion stretched his arms out across the sky. Caged inside for so long, waiting for the judgement certain to come, the huge black void above dazzled him. His freedom suddenly given back to him, he almost felt as if it wanted to swallow him whole. He looked around instead.

They were on a rooftop. Various exhaust pipes jutted up. Huge fans, their blades five feet each, were installed in the roof to suck fresh air down into the building. They spun at thousands of revolutions each minute and created a hum that made it impossible to speak normally. A satellite dish craned its neck and pointed its skeletal nose toward the heavens. Conspicuously absent, however, was the man who had come out here only seconds before them. There was nowhere for him to go, yet he was nowhere to be seen.

All that remained was to find a way down. In the darkness, he could not be certain how high they were, but they were certainly too high to jump. Surely there would have to be a ladder or fire escape stairs somewhere. Indeed, off in the distance was something that could have been a ladder. As they began to walk toward it, she stopped the world.

"When we get out of this place," she screamed, as they were next to one of the mercilessly noisy ventilation fans, "why don't we get married? I've come to my senses, and I feel for you now as you did for me then. You said you would feel that way forever. Was it true? I know it sounds stupid, but, really, would you want to marry me?"

He had no problem being heard, as he was overjoyed and yelling. "Of course! For so long I've been craving those words. So many times as I lowered myself into the depths of sleep I envisioned them. In the darkness, I saw you and I together, and I said them to you. I always imagined that they would come to my ears from my own mouth, but that's no matter, as long as they were said. Of course! Put your ring on my hand! You and I! Forever!"

With that, it was only reasonable that he turned and leaped into the fan. The blades left no piece of him larger than a fingernail. Out of the red cloud shot the only exception: his left hand, which had remained pristine and, after flying in a most improbable arc, landed at her feet.

The Instant, Empty Eternity

The downtown street was walled with small shops and dotted with yuppie cafés. Waxed BMW's and rusted VW's joined in an impromptu parade path the man at a sidewalk table. Absorbed in himself, his Kafka, and his coffee, they came and then went completely unnoticed by him.

This remarkably bland day continued for all. Not even a yawn of a breeze could be coaxed from the sky. Until she floated out to a table opposite his.

Fine art must step aside for that which is finally art, so he put his book down. She sat, then pulled out a notebook and, after a moment, began jotting. As she sipped her drink, he realized that Lessing was right. There are, indeed, some things that must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose. This was the first one he had seen. He pushed his chair back.

"A writer?"

She looked up smoothly, yet abruptly. Her glasses made her eyes seem larger, and emboldened the already-rich brown color behind them. The lenses were not thick, but the angle at which he looked at her through them gave her eyes an impressive appearance. Her entire manner attested to her depth and intelligence, but without the authenticity lent to her by her glasses, others would not accept her as such.

"This? Oh, no. I'm just writing down what things I have to do in the future. If I don't, I'll forget. Things just leave my mind so easily. Besides, I've no story to tell. Isn't that what writers do--tell stories?"

"There's a little more to it than that," he said, smiling. "But everyone has a story inside them. Some create them; others do better than that and live them. Some are created just as characters to live in others'. May I sit here?"

She gestured to the chair opposite her and he took it. "Each of us, though, has something to say." Shoulders shrugged, he continued, "But don't ask me. I'm a reader; I can't write either. I simply sit on this patio with my coffee and my book and devour others."

"So you spend quite a bit of time here, then?"

"Well, this is the first time I've been to this particular place, but I've been to many quite like it. I don't think I'm going to be coming here again, though--it seems too artificial."

"I know. I'm only here because I have to be."

Ignoring the obvious question, he flattered, "I'm glad you are. You certainly brighten this place up. Since you are the only one here who looks real, I thought I might talk to you. When I saw the way you drink your coffee, I knew that I had to."

That was just odd enough to be taken seriously. She cocked her head slightly and leaned forward, intensely interested. "What do you mean?"

"You hold your mug the same way I do, with the handle facing away from you instead of to the side. No well-mannered person would ever do that, so I had to walk over and introduce myself to my alter ego."

Her eyebrows lifted. "I never noticed that."

"Many things about oneself can only be seen by outsiders."

"Do you always talk like this? You sound like Buddha or something."

"Only when I'm talking to someone I don't know. I like my first impression to be of someone profound. Once you get to know me you'll find I'm quite superficial-in a hopefully charming sort of way." With this last sentence he gave his Cheshire Cat smile: disarming yet ambiguous.

..."Do you see that park there? A small green patch in the middle of a parking lot. I don't know what is more grotesque: the flat expanse of concrete itself, or the fact that the trees point out and accentuate the lifelessness around it. I'm sure they would rather be anywhere else than where they are, and the asphalt would probably prefer they be gone, too."

"Let's go over there."

With a pompous chivalry, he offered her his arm and they strolled over. Silently, they toured the tiny copse until they found a bench. Sitting down, they began to talk once more.

Presently, absurdly, a huge bell struck two; the second chime intruding on the sole, salient presence of a single note, yet not contributing enough to make a whole, substantial group of tones. The superfluous and uninvited second guest hung there in the air like the humid dank following a thunderstorm. Eventually it reluctantly dissipated. Its heavy presence had gone unnoticed, so it merely ceased to be.

In any case, this jagged event, the eternal ten seconds that it was, was truly heard by precisely no one. For the church from which it emanated-a huge, gaudy structure, reaching for the heavens but abruptly falling comically short-was utterly empty. In a tribute to our own innovation, there was no longer anyone to tend the bell, no one who alone knew the true time by which everyone planned and ran their day.

There was, in fact, no longer even a bell. Made long ago of a poorly mixed alloy, it had corroded and cracked beyond repair, and was replaced with a recording which blared loudly at its predetermined intervals. The whole thing was looked upon as an anachronism. For now, it stayed, as it was convenient when one wanted to set one's wristwatch. But once the years of disrepair finally put an end to its farce, it would certainly remain broken, as no one still alive knew how to fix the thing.

They had been together for the better part of a lifetime when her husband appeared again for the first time. He had been shopping, and the results of his hunting and gathering for the two of them hung in a bulging bag on his left arm. Her eyes lit up when she saw that she would no longer have to fend for herself. She jumped up and poured an embrace upon him. Mopping herself up, she finished the last drink of what had been in her mug, attacked his right arm, and they set off. The green, flowerless bushes inserted themselves between the dreamer and the couple, and they disappeared.

On the other side of the patio, the cappuccino mug had been empty for some time, although for how long he could not be certain. It sat there with the remnants of the foam that once crowned it sticking dryly to the insides. But another mug was also there, this one nearly as empty: only a few swallows of the house coffee du jour remained.

If asked, he would reply in all honesty that he had no idea when he ordered this second drink. The questioner would certainly have found this peculiar, as he would have had to leave the patio to go to the counter inside to fetch it. Failing to notice that most walk around in daydreams of others' creation, the inquisitor would have condemned our man for living in his own reverie. No one did ask, though, which was good, as it saved him the indifference that would be much better spent on more important things.

The coffee was only vaguely lukewarm and ingratiatingly sweet, even though he left it unadulterated. He finished it off, impressed with the taste, and looked at the notepad before him, as blank as it was when he first entered hours ago.

Pressing matters waited, so he gathered his things and left, stopping briefly to buy a small packet of the coffee he just had. At home, he tossed it carelessly into a cabinet. This uninvited guest stirred up and shook apart a thick layer of dust that lay on the haphazard pile. The cloud settled again, leaving the bottom packets with less dust than they had before, as some of it immediately submerged the initiate.

Meconnaissance

"My whole life has been little else than a long reverie divided into chapters by my daily walks."

--Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I am a solitary man. They don't even call me that, anymore. Fortunately, I have a temperament agreeable with my own company, since it is not by choice. A single evergreen tree in a dense, deciduous forest (yet a tree nonetheless), I do not have to offer what others want. No one is dazzled by my bright displays of red, gold, and orange in autumn, for I have no inclination toward such showy, superfluous efforts. But my leaves--needles, they call them; sharp and uninviting--fall, too. They die still green, at their own right time, rather than at some predestined age. They are shed to make room for new ones, greener and fresher. No one presses mine in books; children do not climb my trunk in summer, for my branches are too thin and numerous--

Enough about trees. This autumnal New England wood overwhelms me and intrudes into my thoughts. Please forgive the previous lengthy analogy. I do spend much time here; enough, in fact, to have given names to some of the residents: a brave squirrel who, after sharing his homestead with me regularly for months, was rewarded for his eventual intrepid inquiry with a few assorted nuts I had gathered should he ever deign to approach me; the tree with its trunk split into two distinct growths, one half alive, the other half barren, like an arboreal yin and yang; the large rock with an odd depression, making it look almost like a warped, overstuffed chair, and for which it serves ideally.

I follow an unvarying routine. Although I may not do everything in the same order each day--I certainly prefer to, however--I must do certain things for some time each day. I must spend time at home (in my real home, that is) here, among my friends, in the woods. I do have a house, but it only shields me from the rain when I sleep, and conveniently doubles as a boarding place for my books, my other friends. It is there that I shower, but only here that I become clean.

In any case, as I have digressed again, I must spend a certain amount of time here each day. Oddly enough, this amount of time is not fixed, but it must be enough to sate my hunger for companionship. On some days ten minutes is enough, on others three hours is too short. If I am detained or prevented from taking this excursion, I become edgy and irritable, and must make up for the lost time at the next opportunity by extending my session.

I have come late this afternoon, as I usually do. In fact, it is evening now. It is October, so there is no longer any need to wait for the noon summer heat to subside, but I prefer the subdued light as the sun falls slowly back to earth. Regardless, today it was impossible to come earlier, as a heavy fall rain would have soaked me in my misery, and I need no help with that. It has slowed to a barely perceptible drizzle, a seemingly accidental, atavistic mist accumulating on the leaves which discharge them in large, sporadic drops. My long, woolen coat keeps out the crisp chill, my hands residing in its over-large pockets.

The damp leaves make no sound as I pass upon them, and the soaked twigs bend rather than break under my weight. All that remains is the dulled thud of my footfalls on the soon-rotting carpet. The muffled silence is a marked contrast to the dryer, sunnier days, when the discarded leaves rustle brightly, the sticks snapping sharply with each step. A perfect conjunction with my mood today, it reflects my own loud breaking, its sound turned inward.

You see, it has not always been like this. Well, to be more precise, it was and I didn't know it; it was and I didn't want to know it, and now it is and I know it only too well. I realized it in the springtime, on the calendar and in my life.

A preface would better suit the notes that follow, but this being what it is--a collection of thoughts--it can have no preface. For thoughts never start at the beginning, but instead are an epilogue, a coda, the echoes that resonate throughout the hall, muted and distorted, after the true notes have stopped playing and drowning them out.

This is merely than a hasty outpouring, a dam breaking, the water, the fish, the logs, and the fish a messy torrent. I ask that you do not take it for more than that--indeed, I demand that you give it nothing more. Do not commit a sin against my confession. Others are panes of glass, and each adds its own refraction and distortion of the light that passes through them; each has its own accumulated dust and smudges. It has been said that life is better looked at thorough one window, so please look through, and into, my window briefly.

There are no real paths here. In a few places the tall wild grass has been trampled by deer--the animals are smart enough to know where to go to drink--but there are no trails where humans have tread until the dirt is laid bare. Although I always come to the same spot, here where we sit, my friend, I have never (and most likely could not if I tried) taken the same route twice. This is what appeals to me... every acre is my domain; not mere three-foot wide strips cut deliberately. I have been in manmade parks: dreadfully contrived places, where each path is mowed carefully for accessibility, but never takes one near the interesting parts of the wood. They even cut down trees, thousands of them, so that they can have a vast grassy area where one can sit and marvel at the emptiness. Occasionally, they spare the life of the random tree; not out of reason, but in order to make shade for a picnic table. I would certainly never place my blanket near one of those tables where a dozen people gather to sear cows, run around chasing a ball, or simply talking and raising a general rabblement. It is forbidden to simply sit, alone and quiet. Only a vagrant would ever settle there without anyone else. A mindless bustle is necessary to keep our larger, wiser sibling away. Even when sitting leisurely one must appear as if not intending to be there long.

But here, however, my squirrel gets happier as I stay longer: I give him a nut every hour.

Getting here today was much more eventful than usual. As I plodded along, I stepped on an unfamiliar object. This is unusual, as I often look down as I walk. The trees in the distance move so slowly as I walk that I know they will be in nearly the same place if I were to look up, so they hold little interest. But the fleeting glimpses of the individual blades of grass, the spiders, and the snakes to be aware of... below one's feet is where all the bustle of life occurs.

All those words and I still have not told you what it was that I came across. It was part of the skull of a long-dead animal, specifically, the jawbone. It was the lower part of the jaw, broken in two, and only the left half remained. Its teeth were remarkably intact, though the bone showed quite a bit of age.

The route I took this time was a dead-end. I could not cross the stream before me. I sat there for a moment pondering whether I should turn back or follow the stream until I found a shallow part, until I stumbled upon some beavers building a dam upstream. I was impressed that they would undertake such a task, as this brook flows very quickly, and its lack of depth makes it turbulent. Perhaps, to them, that was all the more reason to build. When I came across them, they were not very far along in their project. Well, that is not entirely true: the scattered twigs downstream evidenced that they had been trying for quite some time, but the current would tear apart their progress nearly as quickly as they would build. Our industrious workers showed no frustration, however, and continued building. They had nothing better to do, and nothing suited them more. Nature had called them to this task, and had given them the large, sharp teeth they needed to cut wood. Certainly, they must have been annoyed in the needlessly laborious effort required to construct their edifice, but it is not proper for animals to show emotion. That is a uniquely human gift.

A recently fallen log made for a front-row seat for this show and, as the price of admission was merely time, I bought a ticket and watched with more interest that one would have thought possible. At one point I was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to thank the tree that supported me for its sacrifice. After all, it felled itself so that I could rest for a short time. It knew that I would get up and walk off eventually. If I didn't, the woodworms, termites, and insects would have forced me to sometime, anyway.

After about four hours or so, the project was complete. Sitting for so long made the lower half of my body fall asleep, so I was happy to stand and examine this work more closely. It struck me how sturdy this structure was, even though there were no formal blueprints, no safety inspectors or building permits, and it was built by creatures with brains scarcely larger than walnuts. Perhaps they actually use their entire brains' capacities, or maybe they don't let their brains get in the way of their goals.

I knew that I was close to my daily destination, as this creek is familiar to me, so I decided that I would confer upon this dam the prestige of a bridge. It would certainly be easier than going all the way around. I walked across it briskly and confidently, as even if it were to collapse I could not drown in the shallow water below. Of course, in this weather, the dampness it would have pressed upon me would have given me a most uncomfortable chill, and I would have spent a week in bed, ill.

It was only after I was back on dry, solid ground that the last third of the beavers' work fell apart. But it had served its purpose already. When I come here tomorrow, I will remember how the stream bends and turns, and will avoid it altogether.

One day, after a few months had passed, the squirrel stopped in front of me as I sat on my rock. This time, instead of throwing a nut in his direction, I leaned down and made him take it from my hand.

"You know what," I said to my little visitor, "You really have such a good life. You don't have any worries at all. Your whole life is pointless, so you have no responsibilities. It must be nice to be so care free."

"It's not all it's made out to be," it replied. "It's rather boring, in fact. All I do is gather food all day. I can't read, I can't write--I can't do anything but scurry around. It makes for a long life when you do the same thing all day, every day. You wouldn't want to be in my position."

Gentle Narcissus

I sit here transfixed,
Staring to my front and left.
A slender long triangle
Extends miles from my eyes.

You wander and stumble
Into that figure,
Interposing yourself between
Myself
And my point, my apex.
You give me no choice but to look at you.

You stand there for a moment,
Then briefly meet my eyes
And look quickly away again.
You glance once more.
Am I still looking?
I am.

Do not make me move my eyes.
The vast emptiness,
The wonderful abyss behind you
Is the most beautiful thing I have seen.

You are welcome to linger,
Part of my vision for a while,
Adding a bit of levity to my landscape.
But please do not stay.

If you like, come sit with me,
Talk to me,
beside me.

I will not have to look at you then.

A Rose in the Snow

What! What was it in those days
Of perfect green and grey
That unnoticed hid the chill
That would soon freeze and kill.

Dropped on a pond one night,
It floated that it might
Be found again at dawn.
By then they had moved on.

Later, the petals encased in ice-
For a moment it had looked quite nice--
It was smothered in a heavy snow,
And of the thorns they'd no longer know.

Potpourri (Notes, jottings, and seeds)

The man clenches his Styrofoam cup as he huddles against the pushy chill. The coffee steams furiously, its offerings mingled with the smoke from the cigarette he holds in his other hand-a butt, only half-smoked when he pilfered it from an outdoor ashtray. There were a few more prematurely discarded there, as well, so he has a small supply of consolation for the night.

The wind gusts, sending spasmodic shivers through him. He spills a bit of the coffee as his uncovered hands quake, so he shifts once more to keep the knifing cold at his back. His thin dress coat, a remnant of his days in the service, offers only a token resistance to the persistent and ever-shifting winds. He lowers his head below his shoulders in order to keep it warm-the head must be kept warm, to hell with the rest of the ceaselessly whining body. After all, the body's purpose is only to transport the brain. This homeless man's brain today concerns itself with Sartre's existentialism.

An odd juxtaposition? Hardly. For who has more right to read of existential angst than such a man? Many. For instance...

A decaffeinated latte (non-fat, of course) sits like a trendy badge of honor before a woman in an upscale café. She is just a mile from our shivering man as she sifts through today's newspaper, looking for the briefs of her daily soap operas.

The star was only a few feet away. Cassiopeia was only a W, or maybe an M, which had fallen off an old, decrepit electric sign. That sparkling point hung there, barely out of arm's reach. It was just a tiny bit too far to grasp. It could just as well have been a trillion miles away for all it mattered. The light simply sat there, taunting.

A day in my country

The moon was a tilted, orange bowl. It poured its honey over the trees. As it emptied, it faded, never getting low enough to set. Instead, it merely dissolved. It will do the same this night, weaving its way through the scattered, haphazard points of light cluttering the sky. No one ever came out to see the moon, but every night they would venture out to gaze wistfully at the stars.

"Why do you write?"

"When you breathe, why do you exhale?"

"If I didn't, I would die, of course."

"What would cause your death?"

"Suffocation."

"And if I did not allow my pen to exhale, I too would be smothered in the mob of images and experiences, the elation and the pain of life, all rushing to the exit like a mass of commuters pressing their way off the subway at rush hour after a day's work in the city. They push and squeeze in their flight, eager to be anywhere but trapped in that steel vehicle. Imagine if someone were to lie down in the middle of the station. They would be trampled to death."

"Would you consider yourself an artist?"

"I believe I answered that with my last response."

"You did? Where?"

That sweet caress of life, like a lover tending to the wounds of a weary warrior. A general feeling of malaise and unrest, unable to sit still; fine sandpaper on the inside of the skin. The chest is constricted, breathing shallow

Bright eyes, those that look upon everything and absorb it all imperfectly, in part only, and uncritically. They seem happy just to have anything at all to look at... everything is cheery and colorful to them; everything that is not is immediately rejected by a filter of some sort to prevent intrusion into that pristine, unsoiled consciousness. This appears to work until the filter clogs, as all filters do. The dismal thoughts, the dirty drops accumulate to form a muddy puddle in a street's gutter, finally pressing themselves into the consciousness, emboldened by their sheer numbers. As in all revolutions, they present no substantial demands but are satisfied at the prospect of the recognition of their right to exist, screaming in a voice with no tonal center, no specific one able to be addressed individually as each is an amorphous, faceless constituent of an inseparable mass. Like a tiny speck of dust floating around on the fluid covering the eye, too close to be looked at, but unable to be blinked away.

Eventually the sparkle fades, the enthusiastic darting around diminishes, and the eyelids sink slightly downward. Now they see rather than look upon. Clarity of vision is an earmark of lost youth.

Or none of this happens and they die unaware they had ever been born.

I am simply because I could no longer bear not to be. My creation simultaneously begat my own nonexistence. And, while I am a fleeting moment, my personal absence of being will remain, a being unto, for, itself.

On systems.--The first thing one should do each day is to repudiate everything he said the day before. Not to say that it was a lie, as one cannot lie in only a day--it takes years to build a worthy lie--but, rather, to say that yesterday no longer has the right to associate itself with me, that its slander and libel against me will not be tolerated any longer. With that, allow the rain of today to cleanse and carry away the previous day's grime.

Becoming is an endless process of being, but the instant becoming ceases, being perishes. All who turn around are pillars of salt.

She had a smile only a young lover could have: bland and blankly content. I saw that same smile one other time. As I walked the street one night, I witnessed a man in a gutter shoot heroin.

I suffer from no common misconceptions. All of my misconceptions are exceptional.

Her face was unique in a delightful way. While most attractive women are quite beautiful from a distance of, say, ten feet or so, as one gets closer one can see more and more imperfections. Hers, however, approached flawless even more closely as one drew near. Her skin more like silk, her cheeks more rosy, her eyes ever more alluring. Sirens sung songs inside them. He had drawn too close, and was now shipwrecked, unable to pull away. Already they prepared their tables for the feast, and he was torn limb from limb.

We bury the dead so deeply to isolate them from the despair of our own world; to keep pure and undefiled that happiness that can only be had by the ultimate self-indulgence. In a furious jealousy, a frustration that we cannot attain that same state due to the endless cowardice that we mistake for life, we throw our dirt upon them so that we need not see them gloat any longer. Cerberus may guard the underworld; our own black dog, with a head and face for each soul on earth, guards the overworld. And he is a fat, strong beast, as he consumes countless times each day our own strength as we feed him faithfully and without fail. He is the pet that owns us, and we do not even know his name: Cowardice---though we dare not call him that.

A man who has loved many times has died as many. He has murdered twice as much. As is due to a heroic warrior, each of these defeats is a glorious death. There is no duel more difficult nor triumph with more honor that that of the conquering lover. Let loose the lion into the arena!

[Portion of "4 Shadows" based on Jasper Johns's "Seasons"]

There was one fall afternoon that is indelibly etched upon my memory with a longing admiration, a pleasant, uncomfortable sense that this day is the right one for me, this moment is the one that will make me noble again, the one that would keep my hands from tearing any more my scribbled-on filler paper.

But I have ripped and torn, and it still is not here.

She; her, her... The one that I watched walk with a grace that I have yet to see again, likely will not see again, certainly will never experience again. The curve of her hips no mere artist's sketch, no paltry virtuoso sleekness, but a transcendent line alluring. My own memory, slanderer that it is, has desiccated the color but the angle remains, now without the justice due to that moment, those seconds that day, the sidewalk gliding below her as she approached with her back to me. I could do no more even then--or perhaps because of then--

...

It is unseasonably warm this evening, following on the heels of a day that set a record for temperature. The smell that greets me on opening the door is that of late summer or an early fall; certainly not one of an autumn long-since stripped of any such pretensions and condemned to freeze in the ice of winter, to be stabbed to death by icicles, left to bleed out. On this Sunday night I break for a cigarette outside the library and am greeted, as always, by the old, stately buildings opposite of and surrounding the still-green grass of the courtyard. A beautiful voice sings as silk, and I think of the viola I once played years ago. This warmth is at times welcome, but also intrudes upon and pushes away the proper presence of old, white-bearded winter. I am not eager to see snow; I would rather let this comfortable breeze lap at me for a while. But I have to go inside sometime, my work awaits.

Postmodernism is not a philosophy any more than a root canal is dentistry. While both are indeed painful to the body concerned, at least a root canal helps to heal a wound. These postmodernists and deconstructionists merely poke at the raw nerve and call the cries of anguish of their helpless victim their discoveries and contributions. Pulp fiction is an a propros term for their vomit.