I should've been born when swing dancing was first introduced. When grand ballrooms and movie palaces dotted the urban landscape and Roger's Park was the neighborhood for the nouveau riche.    I should've been born in time for the Great Experiment, when hooch was served in swank back alley parlors and gangsters ran the city, though the politicians would tell you otherwise.    I should have been born for the glorious days of the city, when the El was new, Art Deco was daring, when fedoras were snatched off and trench coats flapped crisply in the November winds of the Loop, amplified b

Dipping a brush into the paint, I paint a broad stroke on the canvas, Followed by another streak of color. Line and curve flows from the brush. I stipple down shadow and light And soon from off the canvas glances a face. How one can form a face Out of stretched fabric and paint Is amazing.  In this dim light, The eyes glisten, free of the canvas Texture, wet and clear, no brush Strokes visible, irises deep with rich color. I am pulled into these limpid color Pools of my own creation, set deep in this face That my hands translated from brain to brush And set down in paint, Spreading it thin and thick over the canv

The rice paper screens grow lighter, fading up from a dark slate grey to a translucent saffron, their wooden frames casting soft shadows on the floor's black-framed tatami mats, backlit by the early morning light.  Floor to ceiling rice paper and wood dividers separate the room into sublime sections of a sublime whole, a private space, containing an elegant dearth of material things, a space where time slows to a stop.  Suffused by this morning glow, nestled in a rice-husk pillow, the silence is overwhelming. However, it must be realized that even here, in this sanctuary of earthen textures, there is not absolute silence.  There is the patte