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YOU OF COURSE, OR NOT
Someone, at a reading, asked me“who do you write for?”I avoided the obvious answer,“You” since he was there lesthe say someone dragged him alongmost unwillingly and my readingconfirmed his initial reluctance.The honest answer is that I writefor those who might stumbleacross my words, might seethem online browsing, or comeacross them in a coffee shopwhere I…
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WITH THANKS
On his first business trip to Japan, what he wanted most, after buying the mandatory gifts for his wife, child and admin assistant, and being blinded by the neon lights of Shinjuku and deafened by the sound of the pachinko parlors, was to find Mr. Roboto and thank him. It was something he felt he…
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IMPENDING
At the most opportune moment it will happen. No one knows when that moment will occur so they must be ever vigilant. It will come possibly without warning and they do not want to risk missing it, for it may never happen again. So they devise, rehearse and prepare an elaborate scheme so that it…
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TIMING
Time travel has becomea standard trope of science fiction,a protagonist going back in timeby intent or circumstance, fearfulto take any action for thatmight change the universeand the future as it would have beencollapses and is replaced bysomething wholly different.But this is where logic fails,for the traveler from the futurecannot affect the futureor he could not…
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WRITING
I have a Chinese friendwho says I should write poemsabout pomegranates and chrysanthemums.A Japanese business acquaintance sayspoems should be populated by sakura and Lotus.I tend to think of their advicein the deadest days of winterwhen snow presses against the houseas if seeking its faint warmth.As I thinly sliced the tender shootsof bamboo and dampen the…
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BOTH AND NEITHER
We are both master and slaveand reverberating between rolescan be exhausting and exhilarating,on occasion both simultaneously.It seems we are always strivingto catch up to technology, that itis outpacing us and that the racemay soon enough be lost.We say that we cannot live withoutthese technologies and while theymay do things faster and more simplythey do so…
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WOLFGANG
I suppose it will sound odd, butthere was a time when, in additionto the Rock and Folk music I loved,classical music was a key partof my life and helped make me whatI am today: a now retired attorney.And not just any classical music,although I loved many of the masters,Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, others,(sorry Mahler, Shostokovich butlines…
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A PLEASURE
The phone rang as I stepped from the shower. Soon dry, I listened to the voice of my neighbor saying a long slithery snake was crawling up my gutter’s downspout. This I had to see and I did, phone camera in hand. He was about four feet long, kinked and moving slowly. He studied me,…
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THE SNAKE’S LAMENT
You realize that it getstiring always being the onewho they try to blamefor all manner of sinsand flat-out mistakes. I get the garden, but allI did was show them the apple,they decided to eat it despiteHis warning, so how is that on me? And do you know how hardit was for the wife and Ito…
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JUST WAITING
I spend a great deal of time waitingin rooms so namedin lines that never seem to movefor old Godot who still hasn’t arrivedfor the peace and prosperity the politicians love to promisefor the light to change to green when I am running latefor the rain to stop when I want to be outsidefor someone to…