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AMOUR OR LESS
I stumbled in love with you, she said because I’ve always had this great fear of falling. It must come from my childhood, though I can’t recall any specific incident, just the deep bruises my parents left when they fell, without warning out of the love I thought had to last forever.
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CERULEAN
He is certain that the sky is always blue and when it seems cloudy it is just that Magritte has risen from his grave and brush in hand, painted the sky and clouds. She scoffs at the idea knowing full well the clouds are merely rice paper cutouts floating on a gentle breeze.
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TO BE, OR NOT
As he begins to speak, she realizes this conversation will, as usual, devolve into a monologue. It is always this way, and with a finely honed skill, she, eyes wide open, slips out of this moment. She is certain, correctly so, he will never notice. He will fill in her nods, assume she has heard…
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PEACE
There will come a time she says, when all of this will matter greatly, the question is how you will know that moment has arrived. I assume, he said, it will announce itself, or at least make its presence known. No doubt, she replied, you will search for it, but just like me, you will…
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OR NOT
He screwed up his face into the scowl that fairly shouted to all, “Don’t Ask!”. She knew better but knew also that she had no choice, “What’s the matter now?” “It’s just,” he said, softening a bit, “that I so seldom get the weather I need, much less the weather I want, it’s never the…
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NOTELESS
He says, “I write songs without music, my head is a libretto warehouse.” She says, “You string words like random beads, no two strands the same.” He says, “Symmetry is for those with linear minds, who can’t see out of the tunnel.” She said, “Dysentery is a disease to be avoided particularly by poets.” He…
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THREE CALLS 鐵笛倒吹 三十九
If your name is called how do you answer? If it is called again and then again, will your answer always be exactly the same, or will you grow angry and deny even yourself? Surely your teacher knows who you are but knowing yourself, that is the highest mountain you will be asked to climb.…
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VISIONS
The small child peers through the bamboo poles of the bridge as he stares down at a turtle who stares up at him with equal fascination. His mother excitedly says, “see the turtle?” Of course he can see the turtle but he also sees an Ichthyosaurus and giant whales and frightening fish. Later, as she…
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SUNDAY MORNING
It is Sunday we sit in the living room each with our lattes she brushing the cat. I sat on the sofa with the Sunday Times. We are listening to radio Hele Norge, unsure why, the Norwegian caroming around our ears, the speakers noticing nothing different. We’re not quite sure how the weather is in…
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AT THE EDGE
He says we are getting to the point where we can see almost to the edge of the universe, see the moment when all that we know was created, see gravitational waves cast off by the collision of neutron stars. She says that is all well and good, but why can’t he see that he…