The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd
"She is, in brief, like you and me:
another of those American worry-warts caught in despair
at where our country is going (jet-skis and happy faces a special bane)
all the while wondering if there are other cultures
that have something to lead us out of the morass."

Great Reviews of the Past
We're All Doing Time
"The Bureau of Prisons,
if it had any sense, would be ordering these books by the gross,
handing them out to their wards. For, after all, the message is
one of peace, and acceptance --- or at least tolerance ---
and non-violence."

BRIEF REVIEWS
Heart Advice for Difficult Times
My Two Wars, and
Canyons of the Southwest

ARTICLES
A Geezer in Paradise
Part I
"I came to understand
that schools here have no local tax base;
they are dependent for operating expenses on
whatever they can wheedle from the state.
Gringoes who live in the school's territory
are expected to give what they call una cooperación."
Part II
"Somewhere near the meat-and-fly department
of the public market is a run-off area ---
a runnel of dark, ominous liquids, made up of
blood, rotten exudates, upchuck, stool,
and dead baby --- all collected together
into a thick and loathsome puddle."

Great Articles From the Past
King Karl the Potato
"Alas, during the past 30 years
a large contingent of my brain cells have gone off-line.
I can tell when each one goes: it announces
this is grey cell #6,956,590,483, signing off,
then it plays the national anthem, followed by dead air."

READINGS
Without Vodka
Part I
"I would divide each drawing into several parts,
shuffle them around, and combine the tsarist and
current drawings into one, using my imagination
about how to link the lines to form an integral design.
That work could take a few days, maybe weeks,
before anybody would discover my total ignorance
of the subject."
Part II
"Facing the solemn figure of the white-hatted chef,
he lifted the hem of his greatcoat and fashioned from his coattails
a creditable imitation of a tureen. Without blinking an eye
the chef poured the prescribed two ladles of millet soup into it
and turned to the next in line. He had seen it all before."