Empty Mirror: Beat Generation, Arts & Literary Magazine

Calling on Paul Bowles: Tangier, Morocco, August 1979

Calling on Paul Bowles
Tangier, Morocco, August 1979

”There it is,” someone says, and in the darkness, in the distance, you can see Tangier sprawled across several hills, a white …{read more}

The Opening Line – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”

And so begins the first sentence to Hunter S. Thompson’s seminal 1971 …{read more}

Chiseled in Rock

Literature is a morgue: I go there to identify my friends. One of them evaporated yesterday, March 6, 2013. The last pic he nailed through the ether toward me had …{read more}

“Street Corner” and “Process”

A hypothetical encounter between poets Philip Lamantia and Bob Kaufman on a San Francisco street corner. Since both lived in the same North Beach neighborhood, loitered in the same cafes, …{read more}

Reflections of a Writer

In 2012, for NaNoWriMo, which is an annual (November) novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world, I commenced work on my third …{read more}

For the Woman Who Keeps My Forever

We struggle to appear
as golden embers gone beyond
days of the christchild drawing near
when we get old…winter nights
and brittle cold
drowsy days and melting ice
Februaries’ left …{read more}