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THOSE WHO CAN’T DO (OR TEACH)
“You know,” she said, “it is the critics, they are the real problem, all holy and self-proclaimed arbiters of taste, deciding what is and is not art, as if God spoke late one night and declared to each one that he or she and only he or she would determine what is art.” I wanted…
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IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?
He said to her, “you know it really irritates me how you always seem to repeat yourself. Say it once and that’s enough.” She paused, thought about his comment, then said, “You know, despite what you say, I don’t, I don’t really, but nuance is something that always seems just beyond your comprehension.” He bristled,…
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OF THEE I SING
My ancestors stole your tongue and left you mute in a world you could not grasp. Now as I search for words of forgiveness I can find none, for my voice is clogged with…
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THE THING OF IT
The thing he wants most is to experience life and all it offers. By that he means he wants to see what is there, to smell it, to engage it with all of his senses, for those are what he trusts, they provide him reality, without them his mind could not frame the moment. The…
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INTO THE DESERT
His is six and deeply confused, and asks questions to end that state. He wants to know if Adam and Eve had two sons, and one killed the other, where did all of the people come from? Ask your father seems and easy answer, but one he cannot accept, too easy for a mind that…
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MESSAGE RECEIVED
There was nothing he liked more than wandering along the shore early in the morning, before the rakes and people arrived, just to see what the night had washed in on the now departed high tide. There would be shells of course, but rarely one he didn’t have already in profusion, and the occasional jellyfish…
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HIGGS TO IT
He had always wanted to be a scientist. He wasn’t particularly good at math, biology or any of the other sciences, but dreaming didn’t require that sort of aptitude. He imagined he was part of a great scientific breakthrough, something that would change man’s understanding of the universe and life itself. He knew such discoveries…
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DISCOVERING ME
They were always almost mythological, heroes of a people I could only imagine as my own, knowing I came from a far different place, one of shtetls and pogroms, of seaside villages, the beaches of Cascais. It was half a lie, but I couldn’t know it then, couldn’t guess my dream was reality, my reality…
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MAL ANNEE
On the anniversary of the start of a war one feels almost compelled to speak to its horrors, its cause, its effect. But we live in an age where wars are plentiful, when peace is the exception and war seems to loom around every corner. So on this anniversary I watch the snowy egret stare…
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GHOST SITTING
I sat with the ghost again this morning, the one who inhabits the body that was once my father. Ghosts find it difficult to speak from within living bodies, so mostly it squeezed my hand and offered an occasional weak smile or nod, said I looked good, but ghosts do have trouble seeing out of…
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an old writer and his words 