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SOONER OR LATER
He is cornered and knows itso he responds as honestlyas he knows how withoutturning away his questioner. “You have a basic choice, “he says, “most likely,and that is do you want itto look like this now, or do you want it to looklike this in say thirty years.If you want it looking likethis in thirty…
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A SIMPLE TASK
You misunderstand me, he said,I did not ask you to write a poemabout a flower, anyone can do that,I asked you to write a poem with a flower. Do not ask me what the poemwill be about, ask the flower, butfirst you must learn to speakthe language of the flowers. If you find this difficult,…
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RETIRED
God sits at his easel, brush in handand thinks about the butterflyalighting on the oak.This man would rather paintthe nightmare of hell, buthe has been cast out andhis memory has grown dim.He remembers being a small childamused by the worm peeringfrom soil in a fresh rain and howwhen he split it, both halveswould slither awayin…
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CECI N’EST PAS
This morning the skyis a painting by Magritteas it is most days, no titleCeci n’est pas un ciel. The birds rise fromthe wetland as Escherwould imagine them,the small wetlandonce a place thatmight be painted byMonet on a day whenhe cared nothingfor water lillies, but nowa jungle of Gauguin. We wait for the returnof the flocks…
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ONE DAY
We stood trapped betweenslack-jawed and reverentlooking at the woman sittingcross-legged outside the doorwaylovingly fashioning a pot,her gnarled fingers gentleon the yielding clay. Others this day fashionedrings and pendantssimple tools on silverand one of a kind treasuresthey would lay outon blankets hoping wewould want morethan just a photograph. Our day on the Taos Puebloended too early,…
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LINKAGE
Linking things is a human need,tenuous forces barely holdingacross synapses easily brokenor lost, never to be replaced. Ithaca is forever joined withGalway City, and I still have notfigured out how to get the twopeople together as together isobviously what they should be. She sits at a small tablein the Commons, staring, waitingperhaps for a writer…
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NOT EVEN CLOSE
It was Salvador Dali who once said:“Have no fear of perfection,you’ll never reach it.”It might have easily have beenmy creative writing professorin College, although he wouldhave added, “and in your caseI doubt you’ll ever get close.” Well over time I havecertainly proved Dali right,although I’d like to thinkthe esteemed professormissed the mark, butas Cage said,…
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TALKING ART
The good and the bad of acquiring a new work of art is that you have to listen carefully when it tells you just where in your home it has to be. You may have other ideas, but it is best to set them aside, for ultimately the art knows far better than you. All…
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REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM
Gertrude Stein saidpoetry is vocabulary,or so Simic reported it,but in that casewhat do we makeof Haiku, wherea poem at maximumcan use onlyseventeen words. Perhaps, if wefollow Levi-Strausshaiku is not poetrybut art, for all artis reductionand there is littleyou can doto reducea haiku further.
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PHOTOGRAPHY
“Trying to explain photography and its art may be more difficult than explaining particle physics.” That was his opinion, and one he deeply held and shared freely to all who would listen or could not escape him. “After all,” he said, “you can draw pictures to illustrate particle physics, and far too many have done…
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an old writer and his words 