Coming From Behind and Inside — It hit from behind like a fighter’s fist — hard — into the middle of his back. Thud! — the sound of force hitting a body. His mouth exhaled all breath at once. From that center — as if a big rock thrown into calm waters — waves of pain rippled…

Metastasized Through The Entire Species — Make Them Think It Is Normal He swung his AK-47 around—in slow motion—the barrel now resting on his shoulder. Without even turning his head around to see where he was shooting—one finger on his ear to buffer the sound, the other on the trigger—he sprayed his load of bullets into…

Restless Horizontal — He lay his head on the pillow, eyes closing to the outlines of the room created by the streetlight through the curtains. And so his ears took over the vigilance. As his body relaxed on the bed he pulled a cool smooth sheet over himself. They had made love. She was…

Call Me Melchior — Part One Some high school students on a subway snickered and mock-whispered to each other that there, standing next to them, was Albert Einstein. The personage they were referring to, with shaggy white hair, would be none other than me — and so I gave them a relatively (get it?) wicked smirk. …

December 2022 — In The Chimeric City of New York — 21. Women on sidewalk with clipboard — Excuse me can you spare a minute? Don’t be apprehensive—I don’t represent any organization and I’m not seeking any signatures. This clipboard is merely a theatrical prop. All I’d like to do is to cajole you with a couple mouthfuls of balderdash. Jive ya…

December 2022 — In The Chimeric City of New York — 11. On 34th street — Y’know how a serious crisis can often change a person’s sense of what is valuable in life. Well I thought — I mean I hoped — that between the COVID pandemic and the sobering realities of climate change — that people would reconsider this…

Fourteen Songs To Break The Ideological Lockstep — In the town square everybody says they are anti-war. Even the weapons manufacturers. And yet, when The War Racket goes into full swing, somehow the vast majority assent to various positions of support. The Comfortables of the USofA, rarely having to face the bloodshed and death at their door, always…

Harshing The Holiday Mellow (A Whimsical Environmental Diatribe) — In the panoramic pandemonium of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting —“The Triumph of Death” (1562)—the earth is on fire, a scorched landscape. Armies of skeletons are laying waste to everything and everyone. A few leafless trees, no other vegetation. Ships sink into the ocean. …