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ORPHAN
I was a foundling wandering from Guinness Stout to Ouzo and back, in search of identity. In Schul I would cry out to Him asking, “Who am I?” and He would answer, “you are, you are.” The balalaika of my mother’s grandfather sounded tinny, a cacophony lost in Oporto, Lisboa. On the streets of Vienna…
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DUSK
As the afternoon fades, the gray of the sky deepens, the crows gather in the highest branches of the older trees, until the leafless branches seems suddenly burdened with great black leaves. As the already waning light fades they take up their hymns to the passing day, approaching night, and we wait patiently amid the cacophony…
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CANYON
He stands on the edge of the canyon and peers into the river etched below. At first you think he is considering jumping, but his gaze is too studious, as if he is waiting for some particular moment. You are correct, he is waiting for a particular moment and when it arrives he shouts at…
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HISTORY AS IT WAS?
The reason the Jews spent forty years wandering in the desert had nothing to do with bad directions, or generational turnover, according to Larry’s father who worked in advertising. It was quite simply because God got really pissed off at Aaron’s marketing plan, “A Golden Calf, my ass!” is what he probably said. “I had better…
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ADAM’S RIB
Adam’s Rib was not, she said, a barbecue joint on Beale Street in downtown Memphis, nor a beloved Spencer Tracy movie in which sidelong glances with Kate Hepburn meant more than audiences realized. It most certainly was not proof of the claim that woman, born of man, was meant to be subservient for all time…
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MEMORIAL
This woman approaches the stone, carefully places sake and cherry blossoms and leans a sotoba against it, before bowing and walking away. It is what you do for a son, she says, looking at the bibbed Jizo hoping she can protect the child who lies beneath. That woman approaches the headstone, gently places the flowers and leans…
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SCHWARZSCHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSE
In the space of a moment a universe can be engulfed, light pours forth from a black hole, suns rise over the event horizon, space curves in on itself until it is yesterday. Shrodinger’s cat feasts on Albert’s twins and the dice are just out …
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AKEDA
My father never walked me up a hill, never asked two servants to wait below, never bid me be strong, never asked me to have faith in the Lord, never raised the blade only to see a ram in a thicket. My father never did any of these things and so I have no special…
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KNOWING
She wants to know if I could be an animal which would I choose. Part of me wants to answer panther – sleek, black, catlike eyes glowing in the night – but never coyote, crawling out of the hills in search of rabbits darting through the sage, never the trickster. I am an animal, I…
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THE SEA
Sitting on the shore, I asked the sea to tell me of life. The sea said the sky was a hungry suitor always trying to devour her. The sea said doves no longer lived atop the mountains. The sea said men embraced wars because they feared love. The sea…
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an old writer and his words 