I think I know why I like this piece so much. It’s what I strive for in everything I do. It disrupts everyone. From Generation Z to those still living from the Greatest Generation, this one has something to unnerve and destabilize everyone’s sense of moral justice. No quarter. Almost no social or political allegiance whatsoever. […]
George Cassidy Payne
My Turn
When it was my turnto go in I sat cross-leggedby the ventilator and told my buddygoodbye. I could have cried but he deserved more than that. He deservedwhat carries no weight. Time. Before the lungs fill with river water, and the dream oozes away from fingers like the texture of drowning lotus petals no longercaught between the rocks.
Everything Is Invented
with words, including the age of rocksand trees and picked strawberries andparticles of sand, all those ideas falling apart between the lips and fingers and toes.
How To Fall Out of Love
If we are lucky, it is like an ant on thesidewalks of Times Square. This memory. This oval shaped, solid, durable, now fixed, singular, squishy, ripping sounding, earthy tasting, leathery,months-long, crimson-colored, knuckle sized thing.
Boulder, Colorado
Is the wry grin an old hippy makeswhen hiding a handfulof magic mushrooms. Or the way strangers feel innocentand accomplished at the summit. Nowhere but down to go from there. Sucking the jeweled teeth of the Flatirons like kids.
A Drowning
No one could save himonce he was lodged beneath the rapids.No one could breathe for himonce he was hauled onto the rocks. Weeks passed and the trips to the hospital became pilgrimages.We were just teenagers. Too arrogant to admit that it could have been any one of us. When it was my turn to go […]
All You Need Is Love
More coveted than gold from lead is her belly laugh while chased around the kitchen floor More magical than wine from milkis the wise mischief in her smile when held, before bed with a fragile stillness The master alchemists of Chinawould do no better.
When Film Took More Than Time
I found this pictureof myself when Iwas less than a year old-September 1981 – in my mother’s arms, wading near a beach on the American side of the St. Lawrence River.She held me by my pits with a smile good enough to getmy father’s attention.
Genocide is at the top
The worst of the worst. Followed by murder and arson and lynching and rape and terrorism and vandalism and discrimination and scapegoating and name-calling and jokes and rumors and biases and insensitivity and a person hung with grief.
How to Treat Water
Store in a copper basin with tulips or rose petals, under a salt lamp. Pray over and be kind to it. Play Mozart andChopin for it. Let it know youas a friend, and always, alwayssay thank you.