Much earlier in this century an Austrian journalist, Karl Kraus, pointed out that if you actually perceived the true reality behind the news you woul… - Jim Harrison

There are no true monsters, only some people [...] who with regularity acted like a monster. It's still episodic. [...] It never works when you leave out even a small part of the picture.

(from: Age Sixty-nine)
There is this circle I walk
that I have learned to love.
I hope one day to be a spiral
but to the birds I'm a circle.

In 1958 a friend in San Francisco burned out his veins shooting up hot paregoric, a cheap high. It’s safer for me to continue smoldering just below the temperature of actual flame wondering if there’s a distant land where life freely flows like a river. Years ago in a high green pasture near timberline I watched a small black bear on its back rolling back and forth and shimmying to scratch its back, pawing the air with pleasure, not likely wanting to be anywhere or anyone else.