Out there, in the middle of the night, on the flats north of some city in the desert, I saw him out of the corner of my eye at a speed I dared not look to see as I flew upon my motorcycle in the middle of the night. A burning light, a flare of…
I did it. I said I would. It needed doing. I wanted to. I did it. The great task, the infinitesimal goal you set before me, I accomplished. Call me anything you like. Call me a swimmer at the shore, the sea behind him. Call me a climber at the top remembering the bottom. Call…
I’m going to paint that son of a bitch. I’m going to climb up there and paint it. I’m not a young man any more, but I’m not old and I can’t get my motorcycle out of the garage because the scaffold is in the way and I won’t move the scaffold until I…
There’s a quilt on the bed. It’s a crazy quilt. It’s what’s called a crazy quilt. You know why it is called by that name? It is called a crazy quilt because it does not follow a pattern. It follows the shape and size of the pieces of cloth of which it is made, the…
We are not dead until we are dying and even then, we are free to spit into the eye of fate or chance or luck. Whatever you wish to call it. Be you one more time. Heaven is up. Hell is down. One is a climb. One is a slide. Chose one. Either way, have…
They come, inexorably, indomitably, indefatigably, as soldiers come before the guns to be wasted, mown down and come again until victory is won. Sentinels, they stand waiting the inevitable assault, beautifully disciplined to inevitable destruction, vivid now courageous, brave and true. Like me if I so dare. Like you. ƒ
I didn’t dream of you last night. I woke up screaming, bathed in sweat, gasping for breath, shouting, No! No! No! I didn’t sleep again last night, afraid to close my eyes. I lay there staring into the dark, thinking of you. Thank God. ♥
“Make it fast,” he said. I tried. “Officer,” I said. “This night is really important for me.” I broke the law. He knew it. I knew it. We both knew it. My girlfriend didn’t know it. I told her to give me a few minutes on the mezzanine level and she didn’t ask why. She…
I had good parents. They bought me dance lessons. Of course, the lessons they bought me never taught me how to dance. Oh, they taught me how to stand in a line with other boys facing a line of girls across the room and approach en masse to the girl directly across the room, bow…
It’s been twenty-two years so I suppose I can tell the story. “We are living an important and fruitful moment now,” I said. “What?” she asked. I repeated the comment. “We are living an important and fruitful moment now.” “Is that a line from some play?” she asked me. “No,” I said. “I just made…
