beautiful girl,

there is a story at the corner of your lips,
in the tresses of your hair,

the curve of your hip, and the smile wrinkles by your eyes.

Come and I will read it to you,

but do not be surprised if I take some liberties

and write myself a part.

everytime i check my e-mail my heart skips a beat.

War Dreams

I wake up and along the line of sight through the crack in my open bedroom door, between the rails on the landing, I have a view of a lamp shade in the living room below. For a second, I think it is a woman whose hair flairs out at the tips; I think it is my mother, standing watchfully by the window. A sense of well-being steals over me, the kind that young children experience when they know they are under the care of someone they love and trust. But then I remember that it is only a lampshade, that my mother isn't really there, and I start to think about how inevitably time rips people away from us, leaves gaping holes where they once were. I am frightened and I fall back asleep.

In my dreams, I am attempting to kidnap children. Why I am attempting to kidnap them is unclear to me. I want to believe that I am a cold-blooded pragmatist and that somehow I am kidnapping children in the name of some worthier cause, but deep down I suspect that my intentions are merely criminal. I haven’t actually kidnapped anyone yet, as I speed along in my car towards my intended victims, I am already imagining how it will happen. The first one, a girl, will be trussed up and gagged with electrical tape, I will put her in the backseat, perhaps I will lock her in the trunk. Then I will park at the school where the second child, a boy, is to be found. Soon the girl I am imagining becomes something substantial, a palpable but incorporeal presence behind me in the car, like the ghost of her, the idea of her already straining audibly against the bindings, thudding heavily against the backseat when I hit bumps and potholes on my way to find the boy.

A car with a man, two children, and a woman pulls into an army base. Someone in the car, the man I think, shouts, ‘Get out, it’s a bomb!’ All four of them scramble from the car as it is still moving. Army personnel surround them, weapons drawn, thinking they have apprehended the kidnapper. But it is just Randy Quaid, that goofy actor from the Chevy Chase vacation movies. A dull explosion like a firecracker goes off in the car, shattering windows and warping the roof into the shape of a steeple.

We are at war.

In a four-corridor hospital, men and women lie on stretchers and rolling beds in the halls and watch news reports from the front lines. They are hoping to catch glimpses of still-healthy comrades, of the military endeavor that goes on outside these hospital walls in the absence of the wounded. Some of the hospital patients have familiar faces. I recognize them as actors and actresses from television shows about hospitals and medicine. Breaking news.

In the jungle, a special ops team carries out a mission. When the job goes bad, two of them float down a river to escape. They start by walking into the current, deeper and deeper until they are neck deep. Then they are treading water and heading downstream. Both of them are Indian men. One is clean shaven; the other has a moustache. The clean-shaven man begins to taunt the man with the moustache. There is a sickly glow in his eyes that speaks of something gone terribly wrong. The man with the moustache tries to float a safe distance away, but the taunter follows him, splashing water over his face, then he tries to pull him beneath the surface. Then they go under, the two of them kicking, and grabbing, and twisting blindly in the muddy waters, each trying to drown the other. Their lungs are screaming for air. I am only a mute witness to the scene, but I try to hold my breath as long as I can. I flee. I urgently need to be anywhere else. I could never hold my breath very long.

A boy, a girl and a horse are trapped in a gigantic warehouse like a cave and the only way out is through a maze. The boy and the girl are leading their horse over a series of crude rope bridges and narrow paths made from brick and wooden planks. The horse is chestnut colored and sure-footed. They come within sight of the exit, a bright gaping hole in the side of the warehouse walls. But the last bridge leading out has collapsed. ‘I know,’ says the boy. ‘Let’s try the way underneath all the bridges.’ The girl guides the horse down a steep incline of jagged bricks while the boy runs ahead. ‘I’ve found it!’ he says. The three of them run up to the light, but they are hemmed in by bright blue metal bars, like the jungle gym in a children’s playground. The boy sticks his head through the bars. He is about to squeeze through and go for help when a heavy man in a uniform stops him. ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ says the big man. He smacks a smooth polished club against his open palm. ‘That is no-man’s land on the other side. The people who cross into it are no longer human according to international law.’ The boy sees now that on the other side of the blue metal bars throngs of people are gathered into a sandy enclosure, and as they try to climb out, men in uniforms beat them back with clubs. The boy pulls his head back inside the bars, and he waits .

A Conversation from the Early Neolithic Period (don't ask)

homosapien #1: "Greetings."

homosapien #2: “Greetings. Have you partaken of the carcass of the antelope of last night?”

homosapien #1: “No. I will partake of the antelope carcass soon.”

Homosapien #2: “Hurry. Now the carcass smells like carcass but soon the carcass will smell like the grey things under toenails and then it will be bad to eat.”

Homosapien #1: “I will hurry to the carcass before it smells like grey toenail things. Have you seen what Richard is doing in the flat place by the river? Richard is making something he calls farming. I mean, what is with that? Do you understand my intention?”

Homosapien #2: “Yes, I understand your intention. Richard is very crazy. But sometimes his craziness makes good things. Last cold season he made the new thing he calls underwear, and now we all wear the underwear.”

Homosapien #1: “I do not care for the thing called underwear. It bunches underneath my clothes and causes me great discomfort in that place.”

Homosapien #2: “Yes, I also. But with the underwear I do not have rashes like before. Is that not strange? I will continue wearing the underwear, as I believe it is good luck.”

Homosapien #1: “Enough of this talk. Come, I will partake of the carcass and then we will go clubbing for women.”

Homosapien #2: “Yes, I like your intention. Perhaps we will not even have to club them.”

Homosapien #1: “Ha ha. You make me laugh. But still I will bring the clubs. Maybe Sally will be nearby.”

Homosapien #2: “No, I do not care for Sally. She has a no-chin like a Neanderthal.”

Homosapien #1: “Yes, I hate the Neanderthals also. Have you heard the joke about the Neanderthal’s head? Why is the Neanderthal’s brain so big? So I can smash it, is the answer to that question!”

Homosapien #2: “Ha ha ha. 20,000 years old and still that joke is funny.”

Self-reliance should never be an obsession; no one is meant to weather every storm alone. Instead be glad that each of us has some weakness or failing. Without them, we might never learn to need each other.

I used to play a game where I imagined my life was the span of a day: in this game the colors of the sunset splashed across the sky brought on the dull ache and quiet joy of an old man's reminiscences, the darkness of the night and the lull of sleep drew me to the peaceful void of nothingness, and the sunrise of the following morning signed to me the miracle of life begun anew.

I used to play a game where I imagined my life was the span of a day: in this game the colors of the sunset splashed across the sky brought on the dull ache and quiet joy of an old man’s reminiscences, the darkness of the night and the lull of sleep drew me to the peaceful void of nothingness, and the sunrise of the following morning signed to me the miracle of life begun anew.