Ghost Buffalo

Zero Tolerance There will be no one waiting, tense as a pulled pin, to hop the subway turnstile just as the train rolls in. There will be no one glancing warily left and right, agitating aerosol behind the school at night. No criminal will circumvent the rules by stealth or cunning. No muffled voice will ask Is your refrigerator running? No missile filled with water will dislodge a single hat. In the darkest of dark alleys there will be no alley cat, when a penny’s worth a dollar and boys are hanged with men and apple pies can safely cool on windowsills again. - from New Walk, Autumn/Winter, 2011

I'm told my book is reviewed (favorably) in the current issue of Hudson Review. The magazine reserves its content for subscribers only, so there is no online reproduction available. I have yet to see the review, but I'm glad to hear the book wasn't panned. I'm especially charmed (and bemused) by this because HR has sent me a smart fistful of rejections over the years. -- Also, Les Murray in Australia has committed to publishing "Comfort and Oy" and "Dear Clive" in an upcoming issue of Quadrant. That guy has a funny bone.

Vendler and Dove Duke it Out -- The Penguin Anthology The Mystery of Vachel Lindsay -- Slate Pale Fire, New Yorker

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God. Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps. The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. The fox condemns the trap, not himself. Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth. I sit at my desk reading a sheaf of printed words, but all the while Blake the terrible puppet master jerks all the strings. This time he does not allow me the predatory pleasures of the tyger. I cannot leap into the heavens alongside him, seizing the fire, twisting the sinews. Again, and yet again, he requires me to document my unveiled ignorance. For I cannot dredge up anything coherent to say about these proverbs -- except that they frighten me. They seem to exist in order to prove that I a...

Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground. - Christina Rossetti

The Higgs Boson said to the universe, Sir, I exist. Swell, replied the universe, let us attend mass. - Richard Epstein Richard's poems can be seen here: RHE

Home sick with a cold, five days and running. It's remarkable how much can get done from the confines of the couch. I've read three books, written a couple of congested poems, caught up on my emails, responded to an interview, screwed around sufficiently on FB, consumed a few dozen cups of camomile tea, lost a couple of pounds, written my holiday cards, accrued a couple of blisters, and considered carefully the laws of gravity, depravity, and unintended consequences. We turn from the light to see. - Don Paterson When asked what single thing humans might, en masse, visualize, pray for, or meditate upon, which might produce a collective shift, the noted meta-biologist replied: Not world peace, nor love; these things are too nebulous, and perhaps even beyond our imaginations. Better instead to manifest gratitude. Perhaps gratitude, he adds, is the only antidote to greed. ---- Merrill proclaims: Echo of mine, I am amenable...

You will never understand me. I will never understand you. Love starts there. - Jack Mueller

Some people achieve humility by prayer and fasting, some by great charitable works. My own method is to behave like a complete moron every three months or so. - DP