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EVE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
Cats have more in common with snakes that we care to recognize. She said this with a straight face. He wanted to laugh at her, but dared not. She didn’t take laughter kindly when she thought it was directed at her. He calmly asked her to explain. It’s simple, she said, with feigned patience, both…
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RECALL NOTICE
It wasn’t so much that it slipped away this morning, I’ve come to expect that, and I know there is absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. It wasn’t even that I couldn’t recall what it was precisely that was gone, for that is the nature of departure and longing. It was more that…
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RED EYE
No matter how hard you look at maps you cannot find that evanescent border that divides weariness from exhaustion. You need no papers to slip across, no guards or fences will greet you, you may be well across before anyone notices. The return journey is harder still for you won’t have marked your way, and…
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ARRIGATO, GAZAIMUS
The old man walks slowly through the opulent lobby the light of the triple chandeliers refracted into a thousand spectra that dance on mirrored walls. The guard gently touches his elbow steering him as though he is blind drunk, while the bellman walks a step behind, like Charlton Heston through an invisible sea. The man…
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AT THE GATEWAY OF HEAVEN
There is hell to preserve heaven, an AntiChrist as Jesus’ counterpart. At the Ritz Carlton Seoul I am given room 666. There is an apple on the desk. Someone has taken the Gideon’s. God is on the eighth floor.
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GYOZAN DRAWS A LINE 鐵笛倒吹 八十三
At the end of a long day of discourse the teacher may ask the student what have you learned. How should the student respond. The student may raise a finger and trace a line in the air of a fading day. Which, I ask you is the teacher and which is the student? A reflection…
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SEASONINGS (HAIKU)
above only sky beneath only dark gray clouds the sun is content a mountain of clouds rises from white tufted bed the earth is watered in winter’s icy chill ripples from autumn’s pebble await the spring sun the leafless ginkgo taunts the first snow of winter with the dream of spring
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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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CHINDI
Drum beats rhythm turtle rattle shakes Night walks eating sky earth swallows its children. Wolf howls stalking souls.
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RIVERSIDE
The great bronze kings of the Chosun Dynasty look down from Mount Namsan over the city, valleys of small homes, neatly tiled roofs over ramshackle walls, with small gardens clustered atop amid clothes drying racks and cars careening along narrow streets. The old woman wraps the pink towel around on her scalp like some garish…
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