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OCCASIONALLY
I can still remember that dayin San Francisco, on Columbusjust down from City Lights Books,a young man sitting on a milk crateanother in front of him on whichhe perched an old typewriter.“A dollar buys you a poem”he said with a mix of hopeand resignation, his fingers poisedover the worn keys, their lettersfading as was his…
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IN HIDING
The truth lives in the interstices,increasingly harder to seeamid the morass of desire,lost in the tides of alternative truthsas some prefer to call lies these days.If you look for it you will find it,for it burrows in, refusing to leave,to be dislodged, transmuted, forgotten.For most it cannot be seen but need onlybe assumed, but those…
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SHOPPING
One of the hidden joysof being a vegetarian is thatfor us the grocery store issmaller than it is for many. There is no meat counterto visit, no butcher to engage,and the smell of fish isweaker at even a small distance. I do eat cheese, but notthe sliced sort at the delicounter, I don’t want cheeseshaved…
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BANISHED
Yet again this morningthere was a shadowclosely following me. When I turned, it stoodin front of me, daring meto do something I guess. When I asked it whoit was, it said I am youyou dottering old man. I told it that such a liedefied belief, for it wasfar taller than me. It was about to…
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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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CACOPHONY OF SILENCE
There is one thing a poet hates more than a page that refuses to be filled – it is coming across words that profess or are sworn to silence. I had a pen I truly loved until it announced early one morning it was taking a vow of iambic celibacy. Poems once pregnant with possibility…