Aphorisms

APHORISMS

Tonic more powerful than music or spoken words is silence.

Solitude is the companionable presence of God.

A conscience at peace is a good night’s sleep.

Coffee is a beverage you drink with your nose and digest with your heart.

After the snake sheds its skin, it’s the same snake.

All play and no work makes Jack unemployed.

The path to Heaven is cratered with bad intentions.

A thousand words do not paint a picture.

Study the past in order to break with the past.

In practice law is not a well-wrought urn but the purveyor of tortuous vagaries.

Originally published in The Penmen Review (April 10, 2017)

Blue Train

BLUE TRAIN

To John Coltrane

I listened to your blue train sauntering by...

Rhythmic, not marching but the two-step

Of a bird in a courtship dance, switching feet...

Coolly, fresh waters of a brook...cloudless cobalt blue sky...

Curling stone sliding, deep diver gliding...

Bass, low rumble of savannah elephants;

Cymbals, soft rain, silver pom-poms;

Saxophone, lead, flashing a deck of cards;

Trumpet, sharp, blending harmonies;

Piano, lively, dueling with the brass;

Saxophone, once more, announcing a theme one way,

Declaring it another, opening, closing doors...

Approaching the station...wheels slowing, whistle blowing...

Weaving in and out, a boxer feints, dodges, scores—drums.

John Coltrane (1926-67)