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NAM
He said, “I survived the war, was up to my armpits in water wading through the night through the rice plants that would never bear grain once we called in the orange. I walk through minefields, the noise a deafening silence since the only sound that mattered was the click that shouted death You think…
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FOR SPACIOUS SKIES
Two men, having reached an indeterminate age, sit on old chairs outside the small town grocery, it’s neon beer sign half, flickering, around the corner from the bank on main street. One, plaid shirt tucked in coveralls, one bib strap unbuckled, leans back, takes a turn on his long neck, his cane propped against his…
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NAME THAT TUNE
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 says, “Dysentery, verbal, is a disease to be avoided particularly by poets.”…
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CRISIS
He wants to have his midlife crisis in peace and quiet. He has penciled it in his calendar for at least five years now. Something always comes up, something that demands he be in public, and he simply will not have a crisis in that setting, no matter what. He’s sure he supposed to have…
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LOWERING
When they lowered my grandmother’s casket into the sodden earth, there wan’t a dry eye, shoulder or leg, around. She would’ve laughed aloud, her children always too busy for a visit now soaked to the skin in a cold, windy downpour, all but me, the one she chose to conduct the service, the funeral director…
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WALKING
He walks slowly, with a stoop, born of time or knowledge of a world that has seeped away. He smiles, but you cannot tell if it is at the worm slowly crossing the sidewalk, or the young woman pulling on the leash of her far too large dog. He could walk this route with his…
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STILL SMALL VOICE
We listen carefully certain we can hear it if and when it appears. We hear nothing, but we are used to not hearing, but faith is a far more patient than it is given credit for and we have nothing to do in any event, other than to abide an event we cannot predict and…
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RECALL
It is always odd watching older men gather to talk about their lives, about how much they no longer remember of last year and a decade ago, about the infinite details they do recall of their time spent in the army, air force, navy, the smell of slop on a shingle, the stain on the…
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ON THE MESA
At night, in these mountains you see a million stars, but all you hear is the silence. It bothers you, this silence and you strain to hear, what? There is no one here but you and your breath is swallowed by the night sky. Be still for the wind will rise, and these mountains and…
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NO REPLY
You must be home now, or somewhere you can answer my call, and the busy signal or disembodied voice, purporting to be you can only mean that this very moment if you are calling me the busy signal or disembodied voice purporting to be me is giving you a momentary frustration rivaling my own. This…
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an old writer and his words 