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Showing posts from 2010

Decade in Review...(is it a year late?)

Decade in Haiku 2000 Snowed in one morning With book sitting on my porch White pages flutter 2001 Library at dusk Wandering lost among stacks Echos in Eco 2002 Don black regalia Walk hard steps into the world Sadly leave the Hill 2003 White orchids in place light of the world in bride's eyes Nuptial bells ring true 2004 Switching languages Running the course of the halls No peace til midnight 2005 Shimmering old road Driving steady until dawn Finally back home 2006 Rampant miracles Name to launch a thousand ships Embarked with new dawn 2007 Ivory labyrinth Find voice by building with words Lose myself in echoes 2008 Learned to not miss sleep Running on a caffeine drip Hope in November 2009 No more evening news Rough ripples from weak markets Sail on with my works 2010 Months of unpacking And moving while standing still Everyone growing

every...

every sound informs the next word sentence paragraph informs the next paper chapter book informs the next day week month informs the next year life death informs the next fragmentation of time plane of existence dissolution of silence informs the next sound

Proust Questionnaire

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? (Just to give you an idea, Proust’s reply was “To be separated from Mama.”) That dark corner where any opportunity for hope is extinguished. Where would you like to live? Somewhere where the green outweighs the gray. What is your idea of earthly happiness? A cocktail of my child's laughter, a nice, sunny 65 degree day, my wife's luxurious hair in the wind, and a book that is light in my hand but heavy on my mind. To what faults do you feel most indulgent? The kind that one pushes aside in hope that the universe will take care of them, which ultimately it does...but by throwing them back in your face. Who are your favorite heroes of fiction? Tyrone Slothrop, Septimus Smith, The Reader from Calvino's Si Una Notte, Jimmy Corrigan Who are your favorite characters in history? Robert Anton Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Aristotle, and Lao Tzu Who are your favorite heroines in real life? Hippolyta, Virginia Woolf, Amelia E...

Queen Bee Trilogy I - Proboscis

Queen Bee Trilogy I - Proboscis "What are the bees doing, daddy?" his daughter asks, poking a small yellow and black carcass with a L-shaped twig. On the concrete slab by the kitchen sliding door, there are about six dead bees lying around. The father guesses that they must have spent the night smashing into the glass, feebly exhausting themselves in attempt to get to the kitchen night light. Weighing the options of his answer, the father says, "They're sleeping, love, but be careful because they still have stingers." He is not really sure if the stinger can actually work after death, but one never knows. "Oh," the child replies, still poking the insect, really unconvinced by the explanation. She knows that there is something wrong with it, that there is a problem with the word "sleeping." A person can be roused from sleep, shaken awake from their dreams. The father knows that his answer is tricky, too. "She's too young fo...

100 Pages In - The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason

100 Pages In - The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason Almost having Classics as my "third" major in college, my heart skipped a beat when I received a Google Alert about a new novel that revisits Homer's protagonist with a perspective similar to Calvino and Borges. Personally, I like revisionist history, partly because it nourishes my belief that history is more narrative than fact, mainly because it's just out right fun. For me, the stories I read did remind me of a cocktail of the Homer's Odyssey, Borges's A Garden of Forking Path, and Calvino's Invisible Cities, successfully decontextualizing, a la postmodernism, the Homeric tradition. So, as I approach The Lost Books of the Odyssey at 100 pages in, I am thoroughly entertained and find myself carefully, pleasantly navigating the Scylla and Charybdis of stories that composes Mason's book. While most of what I've read is great, not all of the stories hit their mark. Some stories end just...

Lent 2010

Lent 2010 This year instead of giving up one of my nagging vices , I'm giving up a debilitating behavior, procrastination . So, for Lent I'll write something a day, be it a haiku, flash fiction, or minimalist play. Let's see how I do this year. 1. Teeth working slower than tongue shoveling it all down trying to fill a bottomless pit 2. swaying back and forth between leathery creases and vacant screens that separate the East from the West 3. Dialectical Dialogue - Lent Litanies Adam: You only go where your lust takes you... Lilith: And that's why you'll love me until the end of time...hating yourself every pristine, endless second. 4. How to win her back... Dig for the puzzle pieces that will help you win her back, Find a frame to help you start understanding what when wrong, where you failed, Crumble bit by bit as the puzzle begins to take form piece by piece 5. Stages of Man - II Big black book, small hands Twain's prose sharpened the speartip of my budd...