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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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MICROSOFT THESAURUS
birth beginning opening breach alienation estrangement enmity malice malevolence hatred repugnance hostility conflict battle combat assault onslaught aggression brutality savageness atrocity crime assault strike beat vanquish crush annihilate destroy murder homicide death
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PRACTICE
It always seems odd that the teacher asks me to think about my practice when the heart of my practice is learning how not to always think about things. But the heart of practice is exactly these oddities, for nothing is exact. In the fourth vow I strive to attain the great way of Buddha,…
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CACOPHONY OF SILENCE
There is one thing a poet hates more than a page that refuses to be filled – it is coming across words that profess or are sworn to silence. I had a pen I truly loved until it announced early one morning it was taking a vow of iambic celibacy. Poems once pregnant with possibility…
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TO ALLEN
Tell me more about death, I said put it into words, that’s your specialty so open your mouth from amid your black jungle of a beard now white, I want a noise, a howl. Why the hell do I hear only silence, I know it’s the sound of one hand clapping, but I demand more…
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WORDS
“Suppose,” he says “words may be used only once, after that they disappear.” “You mean in a poem” she replies, “or life itself?” Even four stanzas can challenge most except perhaps Basho. Haiku would replace sonnets, villanelles, sestinas suddenly gone, anaphora is self-contradiction. “Imagine,” the young girl mused “sloganless politicians, talking heads struck mute, hushed…
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FUJI
Looking out the window of the Osaka bound train at the great snow-covered mountain I saw, for just a moment my face on its slopes. Staring down at the train hurtling across the fields, the great Fuji smiled briefly before returning to its stony stare.
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REVEAL
You will, or may see something today that may surprise you. It may reveal itself in a quiet moment, it may be nothing more than a fleeting thought or image, which you are at first uncertain. There won’t be Magi not even magic, though on reflection, it may seem somehow magical. It will happen openly,…
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WORDS
He is looking for words. There are no words. He feels he needs to say something. There are no words. He feels deep pain. There are no words for his deep pain. Many are speaking. There are no words to speak. Everyone is looking for words. There are no words. Everyone wants to say something.…
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THIRD EYE
He’s all of three but stare into his eyes and they say I’m so much more, if you dare go there. Of course I do. As we enter the path to the rock garden his small hand in mine I point to the sign, say do you know what grows in a rock garden? He…