In the coffeehouse two men at a table by the window talk about the painting that hangs on the wall. One man smokes and listens to the other. He crosses his legs, reaches for his coffee, and nods. He pretends to understand, but draws in the other man's warmth instead. They want to work now with their hands too, so they look again and leave. Something will be made, even if it is only a room, a box, a handful of ash.
--Robert Klein Engler
ss He will be 21 in September. ss After dinner he took his sweater off and lounged in a T-Shirt. ss I have not felt so vulnerable in years...or so old. ss He drinks (two bottles of wine with dinner), and smokes (cigarettes). ss He pees a lot (see above). ss All through dinner I wore my silver ring with the fish on it so I would be strong. ss He said that beauty for wisdom is a fair exchange. ss I'm a Taurus. He's a Virgo. ss The cries of animals are more music than words. ss I remind him that beauty is beautiful even in autumn. ss My mind is working overtime making plans; the concert next week, then St. Louis in April, Spain maybe. Stop it! ss "Adam," "adama," "He comes from the ground." ss Do I trust him? Did Abraham trust God? ss He's read Plato's Symposium, but not the Tanach. ss Here are two metaphors: a flashbulb and a glacier. I am both today. ss He has never had sex with anyone yet. ss Come here. Come hear. ss All of this would not have happened if we had not talked in the supermarket the other day about Pascal. ss There are 600,000 letters in the Torah. The letters do not touch one another, so too, every man goes his own way. ss 600,000 came out of Egypt. He came out of Nebraska. ss To pray sometime is to weep. ss Since meeting him all those others seem far away. ss God rose from the dead and left the world. Coming back again is the hard part. ss If the letters of the alphabet would leave us, the world would fall down. ss He is a song that breaks the silence of dawn; and far away a flock of birds flutters into the sky. ss Contemporary literary theory is nothing more than the French trying too hard to be English (cf. David Hume.) ss He says that when he looks in the mirror he knows he is young, but what does it mean? ss This desire is like flying. I have no control over it. I hate it. ss He said he will have tracers in his mind for the rest of his life from some of the drugs. ss Michael is in love with him, too. Michael studies the great books at St. John's College. ss I am so tired, so tired of wanting otherwise. ss The presence of my dead mother broods over my dreams. ss We are supposed to meet again next Wednesday. Will the world hold? ss I am wounded and need to talk. ss The snow turns to rain. My desire turns to words. ss I stroke his cheek before he leaves. ss Maranatha.
--Robert Klein Engler