SHOCK & AWE, BEFORE:

We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. Dick Cheney, Meet the Press 3/16/2003¨

AFTER:

You may be reading too much. I don't know anybody that I can think of who has con… Read full post »

Your hand grows cold in mine.

Cupped in your palm,

I find a girl. 

JLP 1926 - 2009 

  Read full post »

She died last evening, an easy death after a stunningly awful few days.

A week ago, my mom was laughing and as alive as anyone I have known. I spent last Tuesday with her and she hoovered up a fudge brownie from her favorite bakery, Back In The Day. Like… Read full post »

Class IV rapids. Family hobby gone tragically awry. Tearful parents set aside their differences and share an agonizing vigil at Cataract Canyon. 

CNN employs a "virtual river" wall map and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. MSNBC's split screen contrasts the real-time crisis with flashbacks to happier tim… Read full post »

I'm watching Muammar Gadhafi's speech to the United Nations and it's impossible to know whether he wants everyone to duck and cover, or participate in a group hug. The simultaneous translation is being performed by Latka Gravas, who keeps correcting himself on key points:  ("You should accept...… Read full post »

Nether Stowey. The annual round-robin recital of Rime of the Ancient Mariner has been completed in a record 0:29, reports a member of the Abridged Coleridge Society. "We left out the parts that were drug-induced," says our source, initiating a lively panel discussion that will alm/… Read full post »

There is a crack in space and time

where you step into the void

and there is one where you hesitate

are saved

and save us all.

~ ~ ~  

 For Nina  ~ August 1984 - September… Read full post »

Canteloupe is either luscious or disappointing. There is no in-between.  

Have finally listened to The Rubberband Man one time too many. 

I can't enjoy Twitter. I might get 'followers' and then I'd feel responsible for them. 

I have lost a friend to Second Life. Scuppernongs are… Read full post »

Roissy. August 6 '09. A purported "lost preface" of the controversial 1954 novel, The Story of O, has fueled renewed debate in literary circles on the distinction between erotica and pornography. "I like a dirty story as much as the next person," said an anonymous critic. "What's troubling/… Read full post »

"Choose your safe words," you said.

I won't need any. You won't go too far.

And you didn't. You took us where we needed to go, to the edge and plummeting over it, but never too far. Genius body. Beloved heart. I had no need for safe/… Read full post »

Here is just a partial accounting of celebrities who are not alleged, at least by me, to be sexually involved and/or criminally complicit with Former Half-Term Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin:

 … Read full post »

Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) heads into a "meeting" with his "staff." (AP)

Jenny darlin’, 

Unemployment in Sanford's state remains steady, at around 11.5 percent.

Moral absolutes - the governor assures us - are sti… Read full post »

Weeks after you were buried, I came alone and played Pavarotti for you. "The fat guy with the great set of pipes," you used to call him. I brought the Walkman I had given you one Father's Day, and those tinny little speakers. If anyone had been watching, they'd have seen a woman/… Read full post »

William Osborne, age 36, was convicted of rape in 1993. He fought unsuccessfully for the right to prove his innocence with DNA tests developed since his trial.  (Photo: Bill Roth, Anchorage Daily News) 

Yay, Alaska. Today the Supreme Court upheld your right to rem… Read full post »

Or did I bathe a small unwilling dog? I don't know - and I'm afraid.

Memory is tricky in the aftermath of what was clearly an awful struggle. The deepest of the claw-marks is roughly shaped like a goat's head. There are pools of water in the bathroom… Read full post »

Beneath the Pseudobombax tree

I quasi-pledge my love to thee.

Relucantly I’ll bend the vow

That semi-binds us here and now. 

 Words I loved to say and see,

Cherubs and chalcedony

Frangipani, memory

You promised me anemones.

Whisper 'pseu… Read full post »

We think your story might be a duplicate of one that was submitted by someone else. -- digg

Okay, since I'm new here I thought I should be a good OS citizen and do the digg/reddit thing with some favorite posts. Starting today. Registering is easy enough. The difficult… Read full post »

southern summer

I will live here under one condition:

air

 

use georgia gently

leave nothing but footprints

 PART ONE ~ “Tender Was the Mesclun” ~

Clarice sauntered past the male rabbits with a dismissive glance. They were strangers to the garden, and in a lean season she might have objected to the intrusion. But not today. There were more than… Read full post »

  “Who's a pretty bird?”

“I love you!”

 “I care a lot about you too.”

  &… Read full post »

God I was greedy

Gulped it down like lemonade

Careless of consequences

Drunk with joy! 

I spilled some.

Splashes of sweetness on wet sand

And while it vanished there,

I was already reaching for more --

Nothing's left but time.   Read full post »

Antique Books & Manuscripts Lot #154. You are bidding an 1817 edition of the Malvern Hills Junior High Tattler with inscribed flyleaf:

I wish I could count all the ways

I love thee, without the cliches.

I love thee a lot

You're a babe, you're so… Read full post »

 This is Daisy Floribunda, a dog of uncertain pedigree. I believe she is a dingo/hamster mix. 

The shelter called her Stormy. It was her stage name in 'Vegas. Daisy is finished with that life now and pursuing her dream...

&nb… Read full post »

You remember him, right? Distinguished gent, if a bit sly for some tastes. Shifty-eyed, and in demeanor as oily as the Zagros Fold Belt. Convicted and sentenced in absentia for a bank swindle in Jordan, he redeemed himself as an agent in the War on Terror.

Mr. Chalabi provided an essential… Read full post »