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MASKING
The Air Force shaved our heads, was itbecause of the heat of a San Antoniosummer or that we’ll all look equally like fools,and easier for Sarge to maintain unitcohesiveness in his rag tag bandof semi-successful Army avoiders. Now we all wear masks and assumewe all look equally foolish, knowingthe virus cares nothing for cohesiveness,and normal…
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REGARDING HISTORY
We stand aroundin the shadowof the Coliseumstaring atthe Roman Forumimagining lifein the timeof the emperor. Fast forwardtwo or threemillennia,and imaginethe facesof those staringat the ruinsof our civilization if we have notdestroyed alllife by then.
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STATISTIC
Today, now many,yesterday, tomorrow, how many? We have grown tired of countingthe mind cannot deal with numbersof that magnitude, Stalin was correct,it is all statistics now, and bodies,always more bodies, never enough,always too many, by violencein the street, in the economy,in the courthouse, in the COVID ward,there are too many places now,where the dead gather,…
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WE ARE THE PEOPLE
We are the people, Who heard the glass breakingthat night as we huddled at home, Who inhaled the smokeof the Holy books as they burned, Who tried to flee but hadnowhere to go, always turned away, Who visited cosmetic doctorsto reshape our noses to look like the others Who adopted names to helperase a potentially…
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A NAME
Someone said that you must name somethingbefore you can really know it, and wehave gone about naming everything, evenas we know less and less about those things. We have grown so adept at naming things,that we have created multiple namesfor the things that we find the most problematic,for then they can be more easily ignored.…
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MARCH ON
We marched regularly, often carring placards,this week against an insane warin a place we had no busines being,next week for the racial justicepromised for a century but never delivered,and then for the ecology, trying to savethe world that our parents promisedfor us as little children and failedto provide, choking through the smogand the teargas, scraping…
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HUP TWO, MY ASS
WARNING: A SHORT STORY, SO A LONGER READ THAN USUAL. BUT WORTH IT HOPEFULLY He wondered why he allowed himself to be in this position. Heknew that he didn’t actually allow it, he courted it. But you couldclaim allowance when you chose the lesser, by far, of two evils.As a child, his mother always told…
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STONE
Just outside townin the old dump isa slab of concreteits twisted edges piercedby rusting rebaronce the floorof the gazebo in the commons.Etched into its surfaceJim + MarieJanet Loves Eddie.Their loves were undyingcast into stone to wearslowly through the agesnot to fall victimto the jackhammer.Jim lies underthe simple stone“Sgt. U. S. ArmyServed Vietnam,”Marie left for collegebut…
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FORGETTING
What they don’t want to see, or areperhaps blind to, is that it alwayscame down to boats, and fear wasalways overcome, the ocean tamed. Today, it is trucks, trailers, and stillboats, and fear is still overcomefor the promise of better, forthe hope for life without terror. None of the arrivals came invitedmany were turned away…
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DYBBUK
The evening slowly entersWarsaw — along Aleje Solidarnoscia lumbering truck backfires — some old onescringe — thoughts collapsing — into rail cars — lighteningbolts on stiff black wool uniforms — polished jackboots —a wrought iron gate — Arbeit Macht Frei The evening slowly entersWarsaw along Aleje Solidarnoscia truck backfires a sudden flockof sierpowka Eurasian Collared…
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an old writer and his words 