Monument to the Legendary Founders of Kyiv. Photograph by David Sercel, 2015 As dawn broke upon a morning late in the spring of a year sometime near the mid-point of the first millennium AD, four royal orphans—three brothers, Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv, and their sister Lybid—found themselves approaching a placid band of water cutting across the Eurasian Steppe. Drawn by the lush beauty of the land beyond the opposite bank, they fashioned a boat and crossed the river. There they

Shiva Nataraja barefoot Amid the prophets' Frescoed subway chapel walls. Old Greybeard dancing With chipped violin And open case Notes cutting The stagnant air As passersby Passing by Drop lonely coins To keep the Master's Steps aflame Those flames that mount The bleeding sky And eager stars that Drank them in Stretching the spark aloft To hold confounded Ramesses In his tracks by a beacon That's been burning since The Exodus, frustrating The frowning Pharaoh In every one of

“Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home.” ― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky By November of 2017 I had been living in Kyiv, Ukraine for three years, with no chance

It's been a busy time at work and at home with many sleepless nights of creative gremlins needling my brain and saying "Hey, you've got stuff to create!" Here are a few highlights, and for more check out my Youtube Channel. First let's listen to an improvised theme and variations on the "I'm Done!" jingle from my LG washing machine. The moral of the story, don't let those little stuck-in-your-head tunes annoy you...put them to work! Next, a loose Blues stroll down to Louis