It's after midnight . . .

A Golden Frog, from Six Animal Songs from the Gone World, from Chien Lunatique, by Christopher Bernard (reader).

The King of the Web, from "Chien Lunatique," by Christopher Bernard

"Vanishing," from Chien Lunatique, by Christopher Bernard (speaker)

Black Fire, from "Chien Lunatique," by Christopher Bernard (speaker).

Two knights bring down the dragons that have long haunted the intellectual sewers of Paris.

I read the opening pages of part 1, "Senor Despair" (pronounced "des-pa-eer"), of the long poem, "Senor Despair and the Angel".

I read "The Great God Pan," "The Hammer and the Dance," "On Wanting to Shatter a Screen," "Urbi et Orbi," and "Social Distancing" from section three, "Dispatches from Pandemia," from my new collection of poems, "The Socialist's Garden of Verses."

I read the poems "Faust Takes an Aperitif in Paris" and "Faust Leaves His Heart in San Francisco" from part four, "Faust Closes the Books on the Modern Age," of my new collection.

I read "Cold Dawn," "Romantic Group in a Prospect of Mountains," "Warms Like the Sun," "After Longley After Amergin," and "Brief Poems" from my new collection of poems.

I read my poems "The Angry Goat of Carrickfergus," "On Being Uninteresting," "The Children's Crusade," and "Phantom Buildings."

I read poems from my new book: Radu Lupu's Schubert, Whisper Me, O Sweet Illusion, When the Music Died, and At the Docks.

Reflections inspired by a recent viewing of Alex Gibney's documentary, "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief."

I read from my upcoming poetry collection: November 8, 2016, Between Two Cups of Time, Opera Zedd, and The Mockingbird

I read Invocation, T#$%! Chaucer, and The Love Song of Donald J. T#$%!, from "Prelude in Hell" from my new collection of poems.

I read these three poems written earlier in 2020.

I read three poems I will be presenting at Sacred Grounds Cafe in San Francisco.

I read two of my recent poems about this year of calamities, personal and public.

A poem reflecting the experience of semi-quarantine during the pandemic.

Three of my poems, written within the last few months: Imaginary Species, Decades (for Jack Foley on his 80th birthday), and Ink

Two of my poems: "The Year of the Comets" and "The Long Weekend"

The final episode: Ashok confronts Mantal as night falls over Lucknow.

The husband, his wife and her lover are pulled toward disaster.

Ashok's nightmare.

Ashok and Dhara and Mantal meet after a night of Mantal's hunting. Ashok feels the beginning of a suspicion.

The dream of the hyenas.

Ashok remembers his time in America, his return to India, and the birth of his ambition. 

The story of how Ashok wooed, and won, the love of Dhara.

Mantal hunts at night, sleeps with Dhara during the day. Dhara remembers her childhood and her dreams for the future.

A band of hyenas, under cover of night, infiltrates a local village.

All three of them dream: Ashok of success and power; Dhara and Mantal of love.

Mantal moves through the forest near the Gobinds' home, hunting down hyenas.

After being confronted with a young victim of the hyenas, Dhara and the beggar go to her home, where Ashok makes the beggar a proposal.

Dhara meets the beggar again, on a long walk in the country.

Dhara is troubled by an unusual-looking man she sees on her daily walks.

Dhara is having a party of her women friends when she suddenly faints, suffering a hallucinatory fantasy: her friends appear as the consorts of Shiva, accusing her of betraying herself and her world..

Ashok comes home to his young wife Dhara with startling news,

A tragic and mystical story of jealousy and love, set in modern India.

Would any of us honestly be willing to perish for the sake of the American economic system?

In the quiet and emptiness of San Francisco, sheltering in place, one can hear the air filling with the singing of birds.

The silence in the city of San Francisco after the directive to shelter in place.