MINDS OF THE RICH PART I Imputed to Diogenes by Strobaeus: 160. “Most rich people can be compared with fruit trees and vines that grow in...

(From an installation by Jenny Holzer, MASS MoCA) We respond to life with language but we can create it with language as well. We all...

I have heard that when Athens outlawed masturbation, Diogenes went to the public square and masturbated, inviting other men to join him....

Yo Twenty Something Editor If you write a poem about just being alive just the hard hurts of being human nobody wants it you got to...

Thinking about sarcastic people. I don't mean someone who comes up with the occasional bit of barbed wit, but people who don't do...

Be Whole Again Beyond Confusion* I break into the empty farmhouse and wander the rooms. There, pencil marks on the kitchen door where...

To the Person Who Reads the Unsolicited Poetry Submissions at the New Yorker I really don’t hate you even though you took fifteen months...

EASTER, 2022 And the wind blew the buds off the trees, scattering red across the black road. Jesus out of his tomb and wandering among...

The Hand of Buddha, Metropolitan Museum of Art I don’t mind paying my meditation teacher for his classes. He has to eat and pay his rent...

Thinking about the word "amateur." According to the dictionary it means one who engages in an unpaid pursuit. It's usually a negative...

Unexploded American Bomb at the Village of Dong Loc, Vietnam Because of my angry response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I have been...

I‘ve never had writer’s block. I can always write something but sometimes I wish I hadn’t. I can always delete it if it’s merely glib or...

(Sappho, Metropolitan Museum of Art) Step out into the day and observe Mr. Hubert who is mowing his lawn at six AM on Sunday out of...

I've been doing a Buddhist practice now for some years. I'm not a Buddhist. I'm not "enlightened" nor do I see myself as superior to...

Moral Injury: "A betrayal, by a person in authority, in a high stakes situation." Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, author of Achilles in...

I'm finding that being alive right now, in this country, with its polarized antipathies, to be very hard. I would love to feel that I'm...

Image from Moving Water, a work in progress by the Serious Play Theater Ensemble. What happened to the "willing suspension of disbelief"...

COMMUNITY Even introverts are having a hard time these days. I like my solitude, but not this much. I spend most of my time in front of...

I grew up with hardasses. Some of them had earned their hardass badge--the depression, poverty, etc. But they weren't a lot of fun to be...

Venice Beach, 1997 The metaverse has created new modes of performance. We are all performing in it. I am performing right now, presenting...