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INSIDE THE PAGE
She asks innocently,listening to the wind whisperingthrough the bare branches of the oak,“How long have you livedin this poem,” pointingto the page of markedand remarked typescript.He looks at her as if discoveringshe’d grown another head,peeking out from betweenher well-polished teeth.“I have no idea what you mean,”he says, “I write the poems—it is up to you…
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ROADS
The problem with roadsis that they all must leadsomewhere, and if lucky, withother theres along the way. I prefer roads that haveno beginnings or ends,that go where they willand change direction on a whim. On my roads you neverarrive late because thereis no point at which to arrive,so you are always timely. Friends laugh when…
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FOR NOW
Tomorrow this poem willmost assuredly no longer be here,though when during the nightit will slip away, never againto be seen, I don’t know or perhaps itwill return in a form I would not recognize,recrafted by the hand of an unseen editor. It may take on a meaning unfamiliar,or translate itself into a tonguethat I can…
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ETD
As a child, I could neverunderstand why, when I knewthat it ws time to go, my parentswere never ready, always neededone or two more things; and whyen route, we were never quite thereeven though I had waited the tenminutes more they said it would take. But I had nothing on my beloveddog Mindy, who would…
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I SPEND THE EMPTY HOURS
I spend considerable time thinkingabout what it is that I am, what is I,whether Descartes’ God or Spinoza’scould possibly exist, or must if I can havemeaning beyond self-reflection, needinga godly mirror, and image reflected.Cogito, on what basis can I draw that conclusionwhat logical proof, carefully constructed willnot fall under the weight of the axiom, cogito…
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NEXT IN LINE
It was the moment they said, we picked you, that I knew they had not. They thought they had to say it. They knew they shouldn’t. I was the next gumball down the chute. You put in your nickel, move the lever and wait. Actually it wasn’t quite like that. If you don’t like the…
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MIRROR IMAGE
Each morning when I lookinto the mirror I imagineI see me, but of course thatis impossible, for in that momentonly the mirror sees meand I see the mirror. How deluded I must beto assume that I look at alllike the mirror, but it is,I know, just such delusionsthat enable my sense of self,and that is…
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A STEP TOO FAR
He knew, the minute he stepped off, that it wasn’t going to end well. He should have realized it two steps earlier, but hindsight was of little use to him now. He knew he had to keep looking up, to focus on the sky. He knew he had to hope it would be like entering…
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AROMA
What I want, no, need actually,is to remember the smells of youth.The images I can recall, but they areaged pictures, run repeatedly throughthe Photoshop of memory, andcannot be trusted only desired. The old, half ready to fall oak,in the Salt Lake City park hada faint pungency that lingeredeven as I departed my body asthe acid…
