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THE OTHER WORLD
He pendulated between two worlds,always on the fine edge of transition.Night brought amniotic dreamsthat washed away the digital bondsthe day had fashioned from his thoughts.Here was a freedom that reality detested.Here there were no walls, only open doorsand he could freely wander his psychewithout impediments, without that voicethat was always perched on the razor’sedge of…
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TOGETHER
It is easy to say all of the wrong thingsto someone you imagine disabled,some obvious, some less so, butstop and consider if that personhas a partner, a lover, a spouse.What do you say to that personwho lives with the same disability,not wearing it but bearing itto a lesser degree nonetheless?As I lose my vision, my…
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FALLING APART
In my minds eye, whichfortunately for it cannot hopeto see the mirror, I am sixteen.No, cancel that, at sixteen Iwas still chubby to be kind.So let’s make me 18, evenif I had almost no hair thanksto the U. S. Air Force, but Iwas as fit as I would ever be.No, that won’t work either,for I…
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HORIZON
He was always lookingto the horizon, as if tomorrowwould provide some small hintof what was to come, knowingthe shadows of yesterday wouldalways be trailing behind him, hisalbatross of unfulfilled dreams.He knew it was a futile searchthat he was wasting his presentfor a future that would arrive on its terms,but compulsions were things hehad been powerless…
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DREAMING OF FLIGHT
As a child I, like so many others,imagined we might have wingsand could take flight at will, unrestrainedby gravity or parents, a freedomboth denied us: for our own goodthe parents said, silently by gravity.We would look at the sky, the clouds,the birds cavorting without seeming careas we were called in for homework,piano practice, household chores.Now…
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WORD LESS
Words that cannot be saidmust resonate, reverberatelike bumper car thoughts, caromingin the recesses of the mind,pinballing off psychic bumpers, threateningto tear free, erupt like lava repressed,ready for freedom, ready to cedethe anger so long held captiveeating away from the inside, nevercertain of the consequencesof that release from its prison.Words will not be said today,fear maintains…
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OBSERVING
He stood alone, a stoic observerin the midst of the maelstrom,deaf to the cacophony,bathed in a golden silence.This was not a gin dream, hehad let go of alcohol and drugsfor they crowded his thoughts,forced them into places henever wanted to be, his dreamsonce his holy salvation and hea penitent to Saint Morpheus, whopromised him freedom,…
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FOR SPACIOUS SKIES
It is a clear sign of my agethat I recall the hours we spentlearning about America, whatit stood for, how it was welcomingto immigrants from everywhere,why America was the greatestcountry in the world, and weincredibly naively ate it up.Vietnam brought us a large doseof the ugly reality of the modern age.Half a century on that…
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HORSING AROUND
At some point in time I imaginemy mother’s family must’ve hadhorses, or perhaps the ones they sawwere the horses of the locals,an aide when you are conductinga pogram, chasing familiesfrom their homes, into a flight to freedom.Perhaps my family were farmersor merchants in Lithuania, thoughprobably not owning a drugstoreas their children did in CharlstonWest Virginia,…