Standing At The Wall

On its surface death meets life, the past meets the present. What was, doesn’t accuse; what is, doesn’t apologize. But this is the one place in America where they face each other, like it or not, beyond cant, revision, and lies.

India: In The Eyes Of A Stranger

The irony of refusing to bathe in order to stay clean ceased to amuse the crew after two days. I was more than dirty. I was becoming one with the relentless grime of India — the smog, dust, and dirt that hangs in the air all day and all night.

Idle Speed

A Prison Journal

I became a crook, endorsing checks made out to the stock brokerage I worked for, putting the funds in my checking account, trading heavily in stock options — always telling myself everyone would be paid off handsomely, and no one would ever know.

Humboo

The effect was psychedelic: Dad heard colors and saw sounds. The people who were most crucial during his first twenty-one years of life — his parents, grandparents, brother, aunts, uncles — flashed by in a hallucinogenic parade of fiery color.

Kozel

I was for nine days only in New York. First time I arrive, I am not speaking much English, but immediately I learn to say necessary phrases: What’s your name? and Fouck you!

Jesus

Right now it is eight-fifteen in the morning. I am on my way up to the office, alone in the elevator. It stops at the second floor. The door opens, and who should get on but Jesus.

Selected Poems

Compromising Pictures