Sparrow

All My Previous Poems

Over and over, / I have submitted poems / to this magazine. / Over and over, / the editor / has rejected them. / Finally, / he accepted / this poem.

— from “this poem”

Catskill Sky Journal

Since I moved to Phoenicia, New York, the sky has become my main cultural influence. I can’t afford to go to the movies; I have no TV; I don’t like trees, or grass. So each morning I’m relieved to see the sky appear, with her curious, fresh ideas.

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Twenty-Five Years Of The Sun

This month marks The Sun’s twenty-fifth anniversary. As the deadline for the January issue approached — and passed — we were still debating how to commemorate the occasion in print. We didn’t want to waste space on self-congratulation, but we also didn’t think we should let the moment pass unnoticed. At the eleventh hour, we came up with an idea: we would invite longtime contributors and current and former staff members to send us their thoughts, recollections, and anecdotes about The Sun. Maybe we would get enough to fill a few pages. What we got was enough to fill the entire magazine.

Selected Stories

There is a theory that dreams predict future dreams. For example, if you buy shoes in a dream, that means you will be better dressed in the next dream.

Letters To My Friends

Every time I take a book out of the library and the librarian consults the computer to determine my past crimes, I expect her to discover the Gary Snyder book I lost two months ago. But it never appears on the screen.

Why Didn’t You Vote For Me?

A Diary Of My Presidential Campaign

I wasn’t going to run in 1996, until Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire Republican primary. For ten days, the leftist agony came over me — the certainty that Bakunin was right: the ruling class does wish to extinguish us! I saw vividly a white-supremacist army occupying the White House, closing our borders, and setting up Christian reeducation camps. I knew I had to act swiftly. So, on March 4, I declared my candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.

Nit Wit

Birthday Poem

Clayton

My friend Clayton died just before Christmas. He threw himself from the forty-fourth floor of the Marriott Hotel. Clayton Brooks was a poet, an actor, a taxi driver, a playwright, a drug addict, and a lover of humanity.

Selected Poems

Selected Stories

I went to a theater to see a play. In the middle of the second act, there was a pause. The actors seemed to be waiting for something. A tall man walked up to me and whispered, “You’re in the play.”

Selected Stories

I was having sex with a man, and I became frightened. So I got out of bed and covered him with potato chips.