Fighting For Peace, Is Like

Must You Write Complete Sentences Each Time, Every Time? Perish The Thought. If Your Work Consists Only Of Fragments And Floating Clauses, The Grammar Police Aren't Going To Come And Take You Away. Even William Strunk, That Mussolini Of Rhetoric, Recognized The Delicious Pliability Of Language. "it Is An Old Observation," He Writes, "that The Best Writers Sometimes Disregard The Rules Of Rhetoric." Yet He Goes On To Add This Thought, Which I Urge You To Consider: "unless He Is Certain Of Doing Well, [the Writer] Will Probably Do Best To Follow The Rules."

The Idea That The Creative Endeavor And Mind-altering Substances Are Entwined Is One Of The Great Pop-intellectual Myths Of Our Time. Substance Abusing Writers Are Just Substance Abusers — Common Garden Variety Drunks And Druggies, In Other Words. Any Claims That The Drugs And Alcohol Are Necessary To Dull A Finer Sensibility Are Just The Usual Self-serving Bullshit. I've Heard Alcoholic Snowplow Drivers Make The Same Claim, That They Drink To Still The Demons.

For A Moment He Felt A Wild Hope: Perhaps This Really Was A Nightmare. Perhaps He Would Awake In His Own Bed, Bathed In Sweat, Shaking, Maybe Even Crying . . . But Alive. Safe. Then He Pushed The Thought Away. Its Charm Was Deadly, Its Comfort Fatal.

Like Some Dogs: Kick Them Once And They Never Trust You Again, No Matter How Nice You Are To Them.

It's How We See The World That Keeps The Darkness Beyond At Bay. Keeps It From Pouring Through And Devouring Us. I Think All Of Us Might Know That, Way Down Deep.