While looking for the way, we fall into the only placewhere we can quench our thirst. The way is not out there. It is notaround the corner. The way is whatwe need and do not give into. The way is what we are and do notallow others to know. The way falls into us,like an open-eyed man […]
George Cassidy Payne
My Core
My core does not speakin Classic Greek hexametersor return to the left margin. It is a scallop shell, a snakeshedding its skin, with an infinite supply of words and pages to turn over. Yet, my whole is recordedon a single, foreboding page. 38 years of life. One exposed solitary page. George Cassidy Payne is a […]
How Children See
Children see melodies crackling, jumping, stretching,crowding, living like hummingbird bones taking offfrom a cage of suet. They see corn, millet, oats, and sunflowers, devouredinto the bloodstream, racingdown the arteries of a secret language, a communication flooding the transcendent, and the soft distance of headlights, as she waitsfor him to come back. Children see storm cloudsand distant planets, the tendons of […]
We Are This Kind of Species
We grew this way; weare this kind of species. Sculling past the underpasses,just unpreventable fragments ofour former selves. We grew thisway; we are this kind of species. Unmarked. Lost from the hive.Barely living off the sun. Stealingfrom the sun. With unlaced shoes, uncombed hair, hand made signs,and machine egos once as big as Texas. We […]
A Force of Life That We Named
By switching off the gateway,we open up the hallways. Aquantum shift. Transpersonal,and full of pain. Opening upcommunication that I have neverhad before. Emergency controlover the transcendent. A wiseway to use the awareness of abiochemical religion. Flooding thebrain with traumatic happiness, Irise from the cracks of our razzlezone. A heart opening. A release ofsome other force of life that we named.
It Exists In You
Is there anywhere elsein the universe thathas meaning? Meaning emerges from a configuration of atoms- An only island of meanings. I think it’s more wonderfulto say that we are it. Two trillion galaxies, such widespaces in between. What else can we think andwhat else can we want? We are that. It exists in you.
St. James Parish, Barbados
We are not divided byour politics. That’s a lie. We are divided by chainsof mountains formed bythe folding of the earth’s crust. A full Gospel assembly of geological ruckus. Under extreme pressure, when the butter melts and foams on the rubber spatula of a mountain boulder, racedoes not keep us from understanding,at least not the […]
The Face I Choose To Wear The Most Often
The face I choose to wear the most often is not a face. It is an intricate network of crossed out lines. It will not stop viewingonce you change the channel. Full of singleneurons in the brain, it sinks into the centralnervous system like an evolutionary inheritanceof compassion, the kind that can’t be consumedlike the sacraments. Soaring […]
A Time Before Teachers
No one was there to show them how to tie a knot orsew a pelt. They just learned how to do it. No cave bear could teach them how to survive amongcave bears. They just did. Somehow they learned. In the age of ice, no one was there to show themhow to catch fish or cut wood into tools. They just […]
Puerta Del Diablo
I once heard a cop from Flint say it’s been a long time since a dead body botheredher. It bothers me that I know what she means. It’s not her fault. Nor is it mine. When it’s allsaid and done, we only know what we possess,and we only possess what we can hold onto. The dead are […]