This morning things return to normal; break is over: time to teach. It’s early now; well not so early, a little after seven. I just woke Akram up with a cup of coffee, black with sugar, which he’s drinking leaning back into the pillows looking … Read More →
Category Archives: Travelogues
From Notebooks Kept
… on leaving The weary earth, the weary sky each weary creature will stop what they do to watch me return, kiss you, embrace holding your face, heart like a bowl ready to be filled, ready to fill. Philadelphia, December 73 … on painting “Painting … Read More →
A Short Walk From My Door
What follows are a dozen short films, most around a minute or two, the record of a year, November 2011 to November 2012, travelogues I made during walks in the neighborhood and further out into the city. Sometimes I saw street art or something that … Read More →
Where the Heart Is
I’m on a grand jury, state of New York, special narcotics, ten in the morning to one in the afternoon every weekday for a month. It takes thirty-five minutes to get there by bus, forty-five minutes if I walk through the Lower East Side, Little … Read More →
Sonnet 200: Out of the drizzle and the fog boys dressed
Out of the drizzle and the fog boys dressed Up like soldiers come although they’re more the Hands that wind around a clock when they change the Guards. In the cry of gulls and the Scotch mist Outside the castle’s walls they stop and Click … Read More →
It’s the end of the day. Play, fiddler, play!
It’s the end of the day. Play, fiddler, play! The sun has gone behind the clouds and I Can see the mountains and the sea. The boats Come in. The girl by the wall is pretty After all and the boys are fine and fair. … Read More →
Yangtze Sonnets
I wrote first drafts of these poems in early August of 2006 over a few days going through the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River with some colleagues, fellow American faculty, who’d taught American Cultural Studies (I’d covered music) at Wuhan University that July. Teaching … Read More →
Sonnet 139: Out of the dark the steep mountains come. At
Out of the dark the steep mountains come. At First a line and nothing more appears on Either side for a long time then there’s light Inside a house, someone sleeping who woke. I am all alone along the Yangtze Whose sides are high, pure … Read More →
Homesickness by Min
… It is a flying bird without feet but never gets tired It is a strong tree without roots but never turns weak It keeps disturbing wonderful dreams Hence souls wander forever … Min was a student of mine during my Wuhan University stay in … Read More →
Body Parts (from NY Chronicles 2001)
… Sunday was semi-sunny in spots, Memorial Weekend, Loisaida Day on Avenue C, the day you’re proud to be a Puerto Rican. There were squeals of happy children on the endless ferris wheel and a really good salsa band was playing, gift from Councilwoman Margarita … Read More →
Sonnet 193: Like all of human kind the rocks along
Picking up rocks with my friend, Pat Maples, on the Isle of Skye, June 2009. Like all of human kind the rocks along The narrow beach are all somewhat alike Yet each entirely different. We Pick them up, Honey and I, searching for The ones … Read More →
Yangtze Sonnet: When the bats come to Wuhan the night comes
125 When the bats come to Wuhan the night comes Over East Lake wide, dark, flat and in flames On fire at first but the conflagration On the water’s only the reflections Of fiery giant smoke stacks spewing Up sparks. One thought becomes another. Fuck! … Read More →