“If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in...

Whenever I get the infrequent opportunity to walk the wild deserted Cape Cod outer Atlantic beach in the early morning, I exult in the sea’s silent roar. It extinguishes...

As a result of recent conversations, my life-long closest friend Diego wrote the following. If you’re lucky as we are, you have such a friend whose interests and thoughts...

Although Memorial Day in the United Sates is ostensibly a day for honoring soldiers killed in wars, it is, rather, a day for promoting war. If it were to...

On the Romantic poet John Keats’ tombstone in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome are these words, which he chose: “HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER.” His...

Ode to the Young Doctor in Gaza To the Muslim doctor in Gaza, his soft, dark eyes, gloved hands gently placed on a dusty, bloodied Palestinian child, with matted...

“Accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.” WB Yeats, Lapus Lazuli The old man in the Irish cap sat...

I was asking this question recently when the nightmare of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians greatly disturbed my reflections and took me in another writerly direction. Now I wish...

It is no different now. The yearning still gnaws. The night dark, utterly silent, Sky stretched endlessly back Into an infinity beyond reach. And the fears, the tears Are...

The people’s expectations have evolved in general from satisfying basic needs to improving the quality of life, and their demands at different levels and in various areas are becoming...

Simon Elmer Der Zauberlehrling (1797) is the title of a famous ballad by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a re-telling of an ancient Egyptian myth that was later put to...

Edward curtin By the lake’s lapping shore above the town and the railroad tracks, my wife and I stopped and marveled, struck stone silent by two dazzling Baltimore Orioles,...

When I was a young lad of 11, I was fascinated with computers, or what little there was of them at the time. It was about 1966, and I...

For my dear friend, Graeme MacQueen, the great 9/11 writer, who departed yesterday from life’s mystery to the other. When you are ready And the day dawns Remember how...

“All things transient are but a parable” Goethe, Faust These books are killing me he thought. The sun has risen, the bells toll eight. I’ve tried to learn before...

The following poem was inspired by a conversation with Mike Yeadon. We have both independently noticed the increasing use of terms like “bungled” and “blunder” to describe the crimes...

“The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood.” Karl Kraus, Half-Truths & One-and-a-Half Truths Things, possessions, life on the...

Edward Curtin “There’s a blaze of light in every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah” Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah The last time I was...

Edward Curtin My title comes from a song sung by soldiers as they marched to hell in the trenches of World War I and the same song my sisters and I...

Edward Curtin This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the theologian Paul Tillich’s famous book, The Courage to Be. Widely read in the days when an educated public read...