Independence Day

A symbol glares from

old elm at Minnehaha

at SUV patriots.

Sharp hooked talons grip

Gray furred prey on the crooked branch

Gold beak rips morsels and jerks and swallows.

Excited children dance as

tail parts fall like snow.

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Milo Fine and Anthony Cox August 30, 2025. An Appreciation with Digressions.

Studio Toile d’Angles was carved out of a near north Minneapolis lot and erected next door to the home of Milo Fine, Minnesota’s least compromised multi-instrumentalist, composer and instigator of modern music. Rectangular and sunk in the land, it is maybe 18 x 30 feet; the roof points to high north and descends covered with solar panels toward the south and inside meets a wall ten feet above the floor. A kitchenette and bathroom are in a back corner. No street shoes permitted. Twenty or so moveable padded chairs, a couch and cushions are set in loose rows seven feet from Cox and his cello. The front row audience is six feet from the end of Fine’s black lacquer Bosendorpher Imperial piano. It is nine feet six inches long and includes nine notes lower than a concert grand’s 88. Debussy, Bartok and Ravel were early adopters. Capable, I am sure, of near-Richter scale waves, Fine’s often emphatic playing still left space for Cox’s bowed, plucked, tapped, and picked cello. ...

Refugees All

Among my forebears are the Schwenkfelders, reformation-era sectarians who emigrated from Silesia (now part of southwestern Poland) to Pennsylvania in 1700s, with stops in several German states and the Netherlands. These were followers of Caspar Schwenkfeld, who in the early 1500s had earned the enmity of Martin Luther because of doctrinal disputes. They were despised by both Catholics and Lutherans. The main issues in contention were whether infants should be baptized ("no" said my folks) and whether bread and wine were really Jesus's flesh and blood in communion ("no" said my folks). They thought that individuals' direct and unmediated pursuit of salvation through faith in Jesus and God was the way. As minor states in the region became increasingly sectarian and rulers came and went, the pacifist Schwenkfelders, who also believed in strict separation of church and state, became targets. Their books were burned. Those who hid the books were...

Flashing Negatives

Flashing Negatives Mississippi, south-bound at summer solstice endorphins wheeling eyes down sensing without seeing: a loss in the leaves a disappearance and again a break in the phone line an absence and again a topped-off light pole a vanishing and again and again and now, a flashing eclipse in a bough. The gorge’s green palisade drops and I am jarred because a high-looping stone’s throw west of my shoulder, wings are beating my cadence and keeping pace. That fierce-eyed, lovely, troublesome symbol spirit casting performance art in raptor shadows. Dr. Kramer (Captain of the Carl Jung) called: “I’ve got those m...

Jay Wrote

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