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CHATTER
The cat tells me thatlong after we have goneto bed for the night shehears the argumentsof the authors of the bookslining our living room shelves. The poets, she says, quibbleover rhyme and meter, claimthis one is academic, thatone merely skilled in doggerel. And don’t, she adds, get herstarted on the Buddhistauthors, who argue endlesslyover their…
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NOT YET
The man walked into the old dinerlooking not at all happy,dressed in what looked likea white robe he found in some alley. He ordered coffee and glancedaround, as if seeking onefamiliar face, finding manythat looked like that of his father, like him,for that matter, and he knewfrom this quick glance thatthey were not yet ready,…
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NAMELESS ONE
It is truly unfair, sucks really,that proximity has cast meas nameless, yet I am forcedto wear all manner of termsthat fit their mood at anygiven moment, and even thenthey can’t seem to agree. You can say it is petty, but Iam jealous of Titan, and helleven Phobos and Deimoshave proper names, and theyare a misshapen,…
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SHARED VISION, ONCE REMOVED
Stevie and I were probably eightsitting on the front stoop of our flat,he the only one in third grade smaller than me.There was no snow to be seen,none in the sky, none on the frozenand still patchy lawn, just the windof an always cold December day.Christmas is coming, I saidaren’t you excited, with all the…
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AWAITING ORDERS
I am waiting patiently for her to tell me what I need to do next today. I’m sure she’ll be along shortly with a list. Hopefully, today it will be a short list. And I know that no matter how quickly I get to whatever task it is she assigns, she will, watching me like…
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TROVE
He says he has founda treasure trove of home movies8mm film in small metal cans,the sprocket holes intactfor the most part, my childhoodI thought captured on 35mm slidesthat I am too cheap to payto have digitized, my adoptiveparents ill at ease with a cameraassuming always back lightingwas preferable, and I admitit was nice to be…
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LINKAGE
Linking things is a human need,tenuous forces barely holdingacross synapses easily brokenor lost, never to be replaced. Ithaca is forever joined withGalway City, and I still have notfigured out how to get the twopeople together as together isobviously what they should be. She sits at a small tablein the Commons, staring, waitingperhaps for a writer…
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IN MOURNING
I will soon enough bein mourning for literatureand philosophy for the momentis approaching when theywill be lost, or I supposesimply subsumed, swallowedup in a cloud appearingmomentarily then gone. The day is rapidly approachingand if you doubt itfor even a moment, goto your local library, ifit has not closed, and notethe diminishing numberof books, replacedby computers,…
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IMAGINE
I think it might have beena passionate love letterI wrote to you last weekbut never delivered although there is the remotepossibility it was justour grocery list, bothhave line breaks after all, but it does show whyI must remember to checkthe pockets of my jeansbefore I put them in the washer. So let’s agree that it…
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WRITE ON
The problem with too manysongwriters these days isthat they either pose a questionbut demand answers, or onlypartially answer their own question,leaving the listener to guessat the balance of the answer. You are atop my list, sadly,dear Alanis, for when you askif it is ironic, for mostof your examples I mustrespond that it is not so.…
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an old writer and his words 