Three Lives, in New York. From Intelligencer I need my used bookstore. The sensuous aromas of waxy skin jackets andmahogany shelves, paperskeletons in an excavatedashram of introspection.I need what it stashes awaybehind a Tom Clancy noveland an old National Geographic.Eureka! That one book, at sometime misplaced in my mind,appearing as a lost symbol ofwilderness, casting a garland-clothed silhouette, as flannel-shirted, torn-jeaned, leather- sandalled […]
time
The History of the Earth
The history of the earth is aconstrained blessing. With my warm human hands I receive it, knowing that it was the sun that Joshua commanded to be still. It was not the earth. The earthcannot remain still. As we move, with our families, in and out of dying,a flowing, syncytium over the earth. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from […]
Yet I Am No Brahmin
The shadow of her eyes, a Volcanic ash, timberwolf grey,on the ribbed and barren seabedof a valley before the pyramids.5,343 feet above the scent of moonshine and charred balsam, clothedin a milky ash, the air is radioactively alive. Like watercress it breaks with a crisp bite – a blade of galactic time,bathed and blended in boiled arrowroot. A lukewarm […]
The Human Condition in Eight Stanzas
We are part of a family treethat is more than a metaphor.The birds feed off our limbs. And besides, this illness called the Future cannotremain hidden for long.Perhaps more than an enemy, we are something less than that as well. Everything presented to us, we can not seem to find. Everythinggiven to us, we can not seem to hold.Yet selected by the […]
Unconscious of the Changes
Alone and ignored,rolled up like a napkinin a French bistro, zonedout to the blithe, unconditionedair, measuring the breathsof a caving fly, dripping rain, in a word. For in the tent the world losessome of its power. Rising through a web. Is it a Black Widow’s?Beauty above. Beauty below. With everythingout of my breath, holding onto what we have. […]
Something Rather Than Nothing
Before slavery,oceans swept awayshadowsof sand pyramids. Before peace,there was just volcanicash on the seabeds- the color of Confederategray, like the eyes of a lost husky. Before the masters of war,there were border walls madeof barren clouds, ribbed and lifeless- above a million stillborn valleys. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work […]
Leap Out of the River of Time
Master Jingzong; English translation by Foyi, edited by Fojin Time is like a river of boiling water. We jump and scurry frantically in it to avoid being scalded. But all our efforts are of no avail. With the rapid development of technology and the economy, has there been a corresponding reduction in human suffering? Namo Amitabha […]
Ways of Seeing Life
Grace Ko The esteemed British art critic and author John Berger once said: “Art is one of the noblest achievements of man”. He advocated that the art critic must not only look at art from his personal point of view, but also from that of other artists, the conscious and unconscious mind of the spectator, […]
Good Question, Good Quest
Steve Braff A sense of ease this settling down wonderfully absent worry. Till I feel the old hunger to capture and codify to make it all ways always mine. And in this very grasp to witness the diminution of that subtle grace.
Friendship and Identity: Who is Reuniting with Who?
Raymond Lam December last year was a delightful conclusion to 2015 for me because my best mates and I had organized a reunion in Ho Chi Minh City. I’ve known one friend since kindergarten, the other two are more or less my best university buddies. What was perhaps most encouraging, and I daresay touching, was that despite having passed so many years apart and living […]