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DEMONS
In the night there are no demons just the sound of your breathing soft, as your touch on my back, your foot against my calf.
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ALLEGORY
The sooty snow blankets the fields blowing like a still ocean off the precipice of the horizon. The clouds of ash tinged cotton hug the earth a blanket under which all life finds refuge from the ghosts of winter. To the wanderer which the cave mouth which the cave?
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SEPPO’S WOODEN BALL 鐵笛倒吹 八十九
The teacher rolls a wooden ball past the students seated around his feet. Will you pick it up and return it to him? The teacher rolls a wooden ball past the students seated around his feet. I sit still and let it pass. Which of us deserves the stick, which a silent smile. Buddha is…
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SETTLING
The old, weathered maple leans into the sun, its trunk stroking the cobbled cottage which sits against the foothill. The square window peers out over a wildflower garden as the roof’s peakline settles comfortably into old age. Walking around it I see the back roof has collapsed the back wall ever threatening to return to…
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SUSHI
We sit around the Tatami table thankful for the leg well redemption for aging knees, and socks without holes. We drink the sake warm and cold, and the Sapporo from the oversized bottles each pouring for the other as a proper host must. Several recall nights on Roppongi, or earlier on the Ginza, moments lucid…
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ON THIS DAY
For on this day there is no peace, for on this day some are laid to rest, for on this day others shed endless tears, for on this day many are wringing hands, for on this day many offer hollow words, for on this day they know they should act for on this day they…
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SILENCE
She only wants to know what lies deep within silence. He says he imagines it is a place he can never visit locked away from humans, whose minds deny the quiet. She says she is willing to continue the search, for even if she cannot find it, she may find something like it, and that…
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NO HAMLETS, WE
We were the crown princes, then, with an occasional princess, though that was more to maintain the peace. Our kingdom was a square block, and we dominion over all of our territory save the two minefields, well-marked, kept by the Strauss and Herlihy fiefdoms, who refused to pay homage to us, denied us our just…
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GROWING
Buddha cares little for the endless prostrations preferring Summer. The sun ignores the Buddha and bows to the greening rice. The grass is growing When we are present to watch Without us — growing.
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NOTHING, AND LESS
The hardest thing, he said to his teacher, both sitting on their mats, is not not thinking, but what to do when the thoughts come anyway. I can’t seem to get rid of them no matter how hard I try.” “Do not try to do anything,” the Sensei said, “for anything you do introduces another…
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an old writer and his words 