The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

“One thoughtmurder a day Keeps the psychiatrist away.” - SAUL BELLOW - When was the last time it came together like this? I’d have to turn back, through soiled pages of vellum notepads until the vigorous crossings out of wasted paragraphs came to an end. There would be something somewhere, I’m sure of it -hopeful of it- but my old friend the daiquiri won’t allow it. “Push forwards,” he says to the rhythm of a sturdy Viennese march. In Vietnam I can buy the ingredients to make two litres of the stuff for about $7. We were going to drink them together, but she got annoyed with me about something -probably somethings- and went to sleep upstairs. She likes how I drive the motorbike as much as I like having her sitting behind me telling me how much she likes how I drive the motorbike. Most of the time we just play fight it back in to neutral, but sometimes she just goes to sleep upstairs. I cooked a dinner of fried grouper steaks, sweet potato hash browns and a basic ...

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.  Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.  In the end that’s all there is:  love and its duty,  sorrow and its truth.  In the end that’s all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn” - Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram The sun casts a glance over the city of Zurich as I think about totality; the everything. The Swiss alps lay silently in the background as a cello softens my eyelids and relaxes my breathing. It is not so much what happens to us over elongated periods of time, but what we allow to happen to us in those unsuspecting instances that seem to find us. There is a journey of trips, dances, wide and narrow strides, falls and fumbles before us all; the only thing that I might contribute to mastery is the willingness to allow it.  I try not to write guru-esque or with specific individuals in the periphery, but the only paint on my canvas has come from the significant othe...

“That's all we have, finally, the words,  and they had better be the right ones.”  - Raymond Carver. I've never fallen asleep knowing that I would wake up to one less mother, and I'll never have to do it again. Three nights ago I dreamt that I was sat at her hospital bed and she had been trying to conceal something from me. Her attention to deception slipped for a second and I noticed that her ears were clotted with blood. She looked apologetically at me. I asked her how long it had been and she told me that she had only ever heard noises and never what they really meant. She looked apologetically at me.  The cleaner knocks at my door, I pour a glass of wine and walk outside for a while. When I return I know what I have to do. It is my craft; my torment and tourniquet.  If I may trouble you to stand -or at least raise your attention to its feet. I'd like to offer a toast. There will be days in our lives when whiskey tastes just like water, ...