One morning you’re taller than usual though the circumstance is a feature of sleep—the last seconds of a dream. When you step from bed your slippers don’t fit right.
**
I don’t think Montaigne invented the essay. There I’ve said it. No one invented the damned thing. It was old by the time of Plato.
**
Don’t you tell me. Don’t you tell me. What did you do with my spoon?
**
Protagoris, Pythagoris, the Goris Brothers Band….
**
Thunka thunka, twang, Wallace Stevens caught in a clothes line.
**
I envy Pentti Saarikoski his early education, reading all that Greek while outside snow fell in the impossible Helsinki darkness. It’s provincial culture and the adaptable intelligences I love.
**
My mother learned to shoot a Colt revolver when she was 8. My grandfather left her alone at the farm and told her, “shoot first, ask questions later.” I come from an elaborately fucked up family.
**
I still like Wallace Stevens caught in a clothesline.
**
I still like silently mouthing Greek while snow falls in the far north.
Planet of the Blind 