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A LOST PEN
I wrote a poem for my father,about how one afternoonthe oddly green ’57 Caddyappeared in the drivewayand he polished its chrome for hours,even waxed the black bumper bullets.It was the love of his lifehe said, except for his wife,he added after a moment.The years would provethat addition was most likely false.I could send him the…
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INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY
It is easier to think about deathon a wintery evening, when so muchof life slips into stasis, and there isnothing to do but concede your mortality,and with good fortune, then slipinto sleep before being lostin a sea of depression. I must be thankful for my dreamsfor they keep the night from becomingthe little death of…
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INSIDE THE PAGE
She asks innocently,listening to the wind whisperingthrough the bare branches of the oak,“How long have you livedin this poem,” pointingto the page of markedand remarked typescript.He looks at her as if discoveringshe’d grown another head,peeking out from betweenher well-polished teeth.“I have no idea what you mean,”he says, “I write the poems—it is up to you…
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ETD
As a child, I could neverunderstand why, when I knewthat it ws time to go, my parentswere never ready, always neededone or two more things; and whyen route, we were never quite thereeven though I had waited the tenminutes more they said it would take. But I had nothing on my beloveddog Mindy, who would…
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WINTER MEMORY
As a child I know the wintersmust have been milder, as itwas never too cold to have my parentstake is to Sheridan Park wheremy father would drag the oldwooden toboggan up the chuteadjacent to the stairs as we ran ahead,and smile as we hurtled downseeing how far we could goacross the snow packed runway. After…
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I SPEND THE EMPTY HOURS
I spend considerable time thinkingabout what it is that I am, what is I,whether Descartes’ God or Spinoza’scould possibly exist, or must if I can havemeaning beyond self-reflection, needinga godly mirror, and image reflected.Cogito, on what basis can I draw that conclusionwhat logical proof, carefully constructed willnot fall under the weight of the axiom, cogito…
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FELIS CATUS
She says just think of it,when the cat is twentyyou’ll be 87 and I’ll be 92. I never thought of itquite that way, of the catbeing twenty, I mean. My cats all diedin their teens, and thoughI missed them terribly, I assumed it wasjust their time, just howlong they should live. I’ve now thought of…
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MELODY
I sing a shattered songof someone else’s youththe melody forgottenthe words faded into oddsyllables heard in my dreams.The coyote stands at the edgeof a gully staring at meand wondering why I slipfrom the hogan throughthe hole punchedin the back wallslinking awayin the encroaching dark.The priest, his saffron robespulled tight around his legsin the morning chill,stares…
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AN E-TALE
I have been repeatedly toldby many that in this hyper-electronic age, the best way, ifnit the only way, for the little guyto buy and sell is online. I’m not one to argue soI decided to try it, and quicklylearned that Amazon hadcornered the market on salesso Craigslist was my best hope. I also learned that…
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POETS GATHER
One deep and abiding beauty of dreamsis that it is entirely logical forMarina Tsvetaeva to be engagedIn an animated discussion withCorso and Ginsberg where none willacknowledge that the world theywrote and imagined is a total mess. Over in the corner, Mandelstam andReznikoff have agreed that for eternityevery game of chess they play willresult in a…