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ACROSS
Across the river running limpid as mercury the sky is gun-metal gray and many stand in the windows of their small apartments and stare at buildings sitting like mausolea. On this side of the river running limpid as mercury the sky is gun-metal gray and many stand in the windows of their small apartments and…
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THIS TIME AROUND
He says that in his prior life, this being second he knows of, he was Japanese, although he did have a cousin in China, but he doesn’t know his name anymore. He wasn’t there for the war with Okinawa, but he knows that karate was developed then, and it’s why, in this life he studies…
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SOMEWHERE
Somewhere in the world at this very moment, something remarkable is being laid to ruin. It is our nature to tear down what we cannot understand, what we hold different, what does not comport with our present view of how things ought to be. Somewhere in the world at this very moment something remarkable is…
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GHOST SITTING
I sat with the ghost again this morning, the one who inhabits the body that was once my father. Ghosts find it difficult to speak from within living bodies, so mostly it squeezed my hand and offered an occasional weak smile or nod, said I looked good, but ghosts do have trouble seeing out of…
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ON THIS DAY
For on this day there is no peace, for on this day some are laid to rest, for on this day others shed endless tears, for on this day many are wringing hands, for on this day many offer hollow words, for on this day they know they should act for on this day they…
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BEFORE THE TEMPLE
They stood at the altar of the ancient temple and prayed for peace. They lit the joss bundle and placed it in the great cast iron burner. We all bathed in the smoke of a hundred bombs falling in perfect harmony.
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PAPAL EDICT
She said “now what they’ve taken away limbo” sounding a bit depressed, “not that you proceed express to the ferry dock, but that was a snap, all you were carefully taught is suddenly wrong or irrelevant. “It would be like Isaac,” I say, “climbing Mount Moriah with Abraham finding a ram tethered to a waiting…
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CHINDI
Drum beats rhythm turtle rattle shakes Night walks eating sky earth swallows its children. Wolf howls stalking souls.
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TERMINAL
Birth, he said, is the first and only real terminal disease. You only realize that, of course, when it is far too late and there is nothing at all you can do about it. Cancer and all manner of diseases merely shift the timeline, but once you’re on the path, there is only one way…
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AWAITING
He strains mightily to hear the sound of a wolf. He knows the voice of coyote well, and here they are ever-present. But wolf is a different creature. He knows coyote will try to take the shape and voice of wolf. But an elder such as he can tell the difference. Wolf is his totem,…
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an old writer and his words 