Hammurabi gave us a code which is honored to his very day by many nations, including my own, and by all heroes in cowboy and gangster films, and by far too many people who feel they have been insulted or injured, however slightly. However accidentally: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.Revenge is not only sweet – it is a must! What antidote can there be for an idea that popular and poisonous? Revenge provides revenge, which is sure to provide revenge, forming an endless chain of human misery. Here’s the antidote: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen. Some of…

for my son. Trying to think of something usefulTo say about marriage, I rememberA morning when I was twenty-plus,Self-absorbed in my tinny pinkRenault Dauphine, my Little Toot,And I tried to get by a tank-truck onA bendy road too briefly straight.Shuddering, pedal floored, my frivolousVessel leveled with the cabLike a pilot fish by a shark’s grim grille. Then there was a car ahead of usAnd, as I tried to floor a pedalAlready on the floor, the blueOf ice I hadn’t seen. Spinning Toward the implacable hugeness of the cab, looking upInto the eyes of the truckdriver, I feltOnly the sweet certainty ofSubmission, call it love, as ifAlready I had left myself…

“Hay en el alma un deseo de no pensar. De estar quieto. Emparejado con éste, un deseo de ser estricto, sí, y riguroso. Pero el alma también es una afable hija de puta no siempre de fiar.” — Raymond Carver – Posted from my iPhone

by Carl Dennis Don’t be ashamed that your parentsDidn’t happen to meet at an art exhibitOr at a protest against a foreign policyBased on fear of negotiation,But in an aisle of a discount drugstore,Near the antihistamine section,Seeking relief from the common cold.You ought to be proud that even there,Amid coughs and sneezes, They were able to peer beneathThe veil of pointless happenstance.Here is someone, each thought,Able to laugh at the indignitiesThat flesh is heir to. HereIs a person one might care about.Not love at first sight, but the willTo be ready to endorse the feelingShould it arise. Had they waitedFor settings more promising,You wouldn’t be here,Wishing things were different.Why not…

You read a poem written almost a hundred years ago which has a small part that resonates so sweetly with you. It surfaces in me when times are tough to bear. In our modern life we are so connected. Social media, sharing thoughts from friends, fromthe news from strangers, can get difficult to process sometimes. Amy Winehouse died of a drug overdose. The inevitable stream of “Well we knew that was coming” “No big surprise” and so much worse make me want to unplug completely.A gunman killing children in Oslo, and it escalates to where I just don’t want to think about it, it’s so overwhelming. I can’t even sleep,…

By Edgar Albert Guest Ain’t no use as I can seeIn sittin’ underneath a treeAn’ growlin’ that your luck is bad,An’ that your life is extry sad;Your life ain’t sadder than your neighbor’sNor any harder are your labors;It rains on him the same as you,An’ he has work he hates to do;An’ he gits tired an’ he gits cross,An’ he has trouble with the boss;You take his whole life, through an’ through,Why, he’s no better off than you. If whinin’ brushed the clouds awayI wouldn’t have a word to say;If it made good friends out o’ foesI’d whine a bit, too, I suppose;But when I look around an’ seeA lot…

true freedom “means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.” – Posted from my iPhone.

I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring? – Posted from my iPhone