Release

I have been storing up so much inside;
when will it be time to let it all go,
and how unburden myself of it all?
Dashing through the snow, wolves snap at my heels,
supplies that I had been transporting home
distract them when I toss them behind me--
one wolf yelps and snarls when I hit its nose,
but it stays behind to rip it open

and eat it, gulping it down greedily
and not worrying about digesting.
Over my lifelong journey home, I have
collected many exquisite things,
and many just of personal value.
As the signs say, though, Everything Must Go!

~~ "Release" by Don Riggs

Goncharov's Oblomov

Goncharov's Oblomov greeted me as I stepped off an elevator during a recent visit to a research library.

Junk is fragile. . .

“Junk is fragile. I ruined tons of stuff, never on purpose. The thought of antiques still makes me sick, but that was our bread and butter. The scrapings of time are sad. . . lousy, sickening. We sold the stuff over the customer's dead body. We'd wear him down. We'd drown his wits in floods of hokum. . . incredible bargains. . . we were merciless. . . He couldn't win. . . If he had any wits to begin with, we demolished them. . . He'd walk out stunned with the Louis XIII cup in his pocket, the openwork fan with cat and shepherdess wrapped in tissue paper. You can't imagine how they revolted me, grown-ups taking such crap home with them.”

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Nine Eleven

I'm 73, and I live in a van.

Opinion piece inspired by Jessica Bruder's Nomadland: "I'm 73, and I live in a van. I feel like there's no place for me in California anymore."

Death on the Installment Plan

"The fairy tales people tell each other. . . they make a certain amount of sense, but they're a pack of filthy, stinking lies. . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine