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WRITTEN ON WATER
Tomorrow this poem will most assuredly no lnger be here, though when during the night it will slip away, never again to be seen, I don’t know or perhaps it will return in a form I would not recognize, re-crafted by the hand of an unseen editor. It may take on a meaning unfamiliar, or…
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WHERE?
The moment you are certain that you know where you are going is the precise moment at which you become totally lost. The moment you realize that you have little idea where you are and none about where you will end up is when you found yourself. At this moment you are here which was…
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SEKIKŌ’S SHORTCOMINGS 正法眼蔵 語十
If you have no earlobes there will be nothing at all to hear. If he has no eyes, it is you who grow blind and your silence can drown his ceaseless tongue. The stick speaks louder than you both. A reflection on Case 50 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)
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AUDIENS CAVE
I just want you to know that the Old Man set me up, and I’ll admit that, cagey as I am, I never saw it coming. I mean I knew he was capable of anything, but he always adopted this holier than thou persona so why would I imagine He’d do this? And it wasn’t…
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SENĀTUS POPULUSQUE RŌMĀNUS
As we walked slowly through the Forum the Coliseum receding into the late afternoon, the Virgins stood patiently as befits a priestess trained to avoid the stares of passing men, even tourists such as we were, the columns staring down reminding us of our youth despite the birthdays that we celebrated with the joy of…
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HUP TWO
In his dreams he is still marching across endless paved paths on an Air Force Base that might be Texas or might just be hell. In his recollection, in July there is virtually no difference between the two. He stirs each time his Drill Instructor bellows, which is every few minutes, likely seconds in this…
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FUTURE HISTORY
The history of modern literature, at least to those who purport to create it, is inextricably tied up with technology. The quill and inkwell ceded only reluctantly to the fountain pen and ballpoint. Foolscap was affixed to corkboard by countless pushpins, but one wasn’t a teal writer until one stuck in the sole of your…
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EVERYWHERE BUT HERE OR THERE
It is odd, when you stop and think about it, that our sense of place is dictated by places other then here. For centuries we were the center of the universe, and all celestial bodies moved around us — without us, no movement, but if t here were no suns, moons, planets or stars to…
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NEXT QUESTION
It was a short questionnaire, and he wasn’t sure why they had chosen him to answer, or for that matter, who they were. He was one to follow rules, so he sat down to complete it, they, whoever they were, said it would only take fifteen minutes. “Who is the one poet you would want…
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HOJU TURNS HIS BACK 鐵笛倒吹 七十二
If a beggar approaches do you turn away from him. If a rich man calls to you, do you receive him openly. How do you tell them apart? If a poor thief in fine, stolen silks stands before you what do you offer in welcome, and what for his battered victim now wearing the thief’s…
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an old writer and his words 