Archipelago: “Lasse is dead. He committed suicide yesterday.”

In 2005 my friend and colleague, Lars Bjuvberg, committed suicide in Stockholm. Lars and I weren’t all that close, but his death hit me in a way that I still don’t fully understand. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that someone so very talented had escorted himself off this mortal stage. Or perhaps [...]

Spoken Word: Sam Smith at Writing the Rockies

I spent the weekend up in Gunnison at the annual Writing the Rockies Conference, hosted by Western State College. While there, I got to enjoy weather that was staggeringly beautiful, great beer from the Gunnison Brewery and the Crested Butte Brewing Company (Gunnison’s GABF Gold Medal-winning Summertime 69 was righteous, by the way), outstanding readings [...]

Mr. and Mrs. Buonarroti

He is nearly finished, bella. They want it erected in the Piazza della Signoria. Already some are calling him a masterwork. That’s nice, dear. Can you move your things? Lucia is stopping by.

Covenant

Our legions are marching on the City of Rain, our bleeding feet, bone against concrete, tearing ruts in the King’s Highway. We remember the lash and the hole.

X

We are the New World’s 13th generation, first citizens of the Next World: whiners, malcontents, slackers, bitching at the taste of boot; blind-stepping teledonnas, our avatars more human than human. Dark little rooms, catatonic terminal glow. We’re vagabonds, rummaging through the machinery of our parents’ high towers, ruthless tribes of marionettes jacked in the trance, [...]