There’s a moment of exchange about Bob Dylan and fame I heard one day at the Naropa summer writing program that’s always stuck with me. Marianne Faithful, who’d been a popstar in the mid-sixties, a Mick Jagger and Keith Richards girlfriend, and had revived her career in the 80s, was on a panel with Allen […]
“That is exactly what happens when you have a national leader in one of the realms [of delusion]–the whole nation becomes part of that realm.” –Chogyam Trungpa, Transcending Madness Infamous Roman emperor Caligula (12-41 C.E.) comes to mind when considering Donald Trump—a leader who became a sure sign of power hungry greed over genuine public […]
“Let me put it baldly. The two halves are: the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE the HEART, by way of the BREATH, to the LINE” –Charles Olson, “Projective Verse” It seems extravagant, suddenly, or maybe merely perverse, to concern oneself with the philosophy behind how to write poetry, i.e., a poetics, […]
I wish I could ignore it all and live a life of relative peace. But I can’t look away. Within a few days, an assassination attempt on Donald Trump missed his skull by a half inch, further burnishing his heroic martyrdom with his base; his self-appointed judge threw out his stolen documents case, based on […]
The profoundly dispiriting spectacle of the Biden-Trump debate, featuring a dottering old man who struggled to finish his sentences or stay on topic vs. a highly energized old man who lied relentlessly to the point of psychosis and often couldn’t be bothered with any topic except immigration, had to be a low point in my […]
What I write in this space amounts to the kinds of things that preoccupy me, and lately I’ve been preoccupied by love—romantic love. It’s not because the new Taylor Swift album just came out (though it does play its part in this), predominantly a slow burn weighted heavily on the agonies rather than the ecstasies. […]
Melodious Funk writing a language nobody cares about much less speaks in a little corner of the unknown universe we cling to it we’re proud of it we even think there’s some reason to preserve it & so we keep on writing as if somebody’s going to read it hello out there As I’m one […]
Five to six days a week, I think about prisons. In fact, I go to a desk in an office, and sit down with a pile of mail sent from prisons around the United States (and sometimes from other countries as well). I respond to help them with their lives, however I reasonably can, mainly […]
I’ve written blogs on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, translating tantric poetry, photography as dharma art, the Denver Nuggets, prairie dogs, Hugh Hefner, recognizing ordinary mind, and a shamanic journey to extirpate the karma of the atomic bomb, but what by far got the most reaction was my review of Taylor Swift’s concert movie (Taylor Swift: The […]
At our organization, Mindfulness Peace Project, where I work as the “Co-Executive Director,” the lion’s share of what we do consists of helping prison inmates to learn dharma. This has resulted in some cases in many year relationships with people I’ve never directly met, done entirely through writing personal letters and commenting on […]
