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David Koteen is a devoted father of three sons, writing and farming at the Hearthwind Community in Umpqua, Oregon.
In summer, cruise ships bring exultant droves of westerners to the town, who, along with extensive drug trafficking, have transformed the region into a wealthy, peaceful appendage to the otherwise bellicose, indigent body of Turkey. Like the thin layer of crude oil on the Mediterranean, affluence stratifies.
August 1990Time passes and you learn that you overlooked a fairly simple and important ingredient. Yeast is necessary. The only time you’re definitely right is when it doesn’t matter. Failure and pain, twin stepping stones to knowledge.
January 1989Just as it is difficult to picture an angel without wings, it is difficult to picture a human with wings. But more than I once considered, it seems that, under certain circumstances, the two are readily interchangeable, just as some solids will transform directly into gases.
December 1987Then he turns to me, and direct as an arrow says, “You gonna be there?” (This, I thought, is what they refer to in books as “the moment of truth.”) My heart was creeping up my esophagus like an inchworm; but my tongue would not unwind.
October 1986I was about to run out of meter time when an elderly gentleman approached, moving about as fast as a snail with a broken leg. He carried two large bags full of food and sundry housekeeping paraphernalia. Red-faced and puffing. I offered him a hand.
July 1985The inexorable pride that haunts me, the fever of gluttony, and lust that would forego God for an ecstatic moment are the gas, grease, and oil that lubricate this Hellbent vehicle. They are tears the sperm that race up the tube; they excite and terrify but they will never, never save me.
August 1983Cholestiatoma is a loving beast; as with other cancers, he comes like a string around the finger, a chain around the throat, to insure that we do not idly forget why we are here. Cholestiatoma (Chole when masculine, Choleste when feminine) lives in my skull between the meninges and the right orbit.
February 1983Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We’d love to hear about it.
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