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11am

the mother of a friend

will die at 11am today

of her own free will or

rather of a loss of will to live 

in pain

 

she is serene

everything needed to be said

was

in the past few days

necessary arrangements were made 

the near future is set

 

it is not my mother

not my end

but this cruel silence

we all share

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11am

the mother of a friend

will die at 11am today

of her own free will or

rather of a loss of will to live 

in pain

 

she is serene

evything needed to be said

was

in the past few days

necessary arrangements were made 

the near future is set

 

it is not my mother

not my end

but this cruel silence

we all share

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Deep diving

All I can hear

Is the shouting sea

Calling

 

Deep diving

 

The familiar, reassuring warmth of the near surface

 

The cooler layer

Fish and sea creatures

 

The pure and true silence

 

Cannot cheat, lie, hide

 

Reaching the deep dark place

So far down

You get to

Within

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A question of time

The need for me to seek your time

To add to mine to multiply

The pebbles of shining instants

Laid down side by side

Carefree and careless of

The incoming tide

 

The need for me to waste your time 

To be the void to vilify

This idea this chimera 

That your fate is already

Waiting for you in

The next moment

 

The need for me to search for time 

To quantif...

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Yearly Remembrance

Who dies on a Friday night?

 

Years ago now

The silly question lingers

A mantra

Not looking for an answer

 

Who dies on a Friday night?

 

A mantra

To scare away sadder thoughts

And complicated feelings and

Unfinished sentences

 

Who dies on a Friday night?

 

You did

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Virus

Nothing has changed

Truly

 

Perhaps

 

The dreams of escapes smaller

The gaze fixed on a closer horizon

 

The circle of daily thoughts and walks

Narrowed down in rarefied air

 

Our common loneliness

More acute and visible

 

But

 

Nothing is changed

Truth is still truth

 

Life is dancing

As ever

On the head of a pin

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Fading

The stories never told

    dissipate

    irretrievably swallowed

    buried

    out of sight

            in the quicksand of memory

 

Take hold of my words

    dangling on the hand

                     stretched out

 

So I can stay a little longer

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Right side up

We know each other

                upside down

 

Every day we exchange    

                    sun for moon

                    day for night

One awake

One asleep

                   keeping a careful eye

            on our shared possessions

 

Geography suggests

                a point of view

                a direction

                to our connection

...

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Nothing out of me

 

I am the bearer of silence

The tree that bears no fruit

The garden with no undergrowth 

The desert with no illusory oasis

The shiny surface with no trace of true living

 

I am the great promised void

The proven emptiness

I live in the vast expanse of the unknown

 

I am the great toothless white shark 

 

I am so close to greatness 

I can taste it 

Can’...

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Point of view

The river is mostly white 

Clouds of ice drifting

Left to right

The sky is pure blue

 

River and sky 

Have switched places 

 

Where does the river go 

At unhurried pace 

Whilst the island and 

I are standing still?

 

The river will always be 

There

I will disappear (so will you, reader)

 

River and I 

Have switched places

 

Both trying

...

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Self discovery

I don’t know you well 

Time is running out 

On this dot between skies and hell

Anything else worth finding out?

 

I hear you sometimes write and spell

And shove it to the cloud

Is it to show or tell

Or to hear your voice out loud?

 

How can you keep so many secrets

When we share the same hideout

What about scares and regrets

Beneath the arrogant shouts?

 

...

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The dead of life

The long flowing graceful stride

The sharp vivid memory

The naive youthful abandon

A young woman’s smile

 

Losing all my allies 

In this wretched war

 

Nobody hears me

 

Shouting in the dead of life

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Winter in Florida

Leave the golf clubs behind

The morning power walk along the busy boulevard

The two to four at the beach (beer, nuts and cheap book)

The quiet evening at the gated community 

 

Deep down you want

What we all want

 

A slice of Sicily

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Selves

Everyone is alone 

But everyone is a crowd

The more lucid among us

Don’t mind telling 

Who they hang out with

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Sick day

Silently

The gray clouds moved in

All colours fainted away

Everything now black and white, no just black

 

I can’t breathe can’t think

Somehow can still grasp

The true meaning of misery

 

I can’t smell can’t feel

Somehow can still sense

The wind of despair

 

A man’s cold

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Park bench contemplation

There are all types

I thought

Canvassing the comings and goings

Of the disorganized crowd

From the park bench

 

The slow walkers looking straight forward

The effervescent teenagers

The dogs walking their masters

The deep thinkers looking straight downward

The oblivious young couples

The screaming toddlers

The bird watchers looking straight upward

The aged lon...

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War and peace

I don’t know 

Which arrow of words and gestures

Will pierce through your armour

Move us to surrender

 

All is unfair in war

 

Of course

No shedding of blood here

Confrontation is an overstatement 

Perhaps the odd flashes of

Aggression in the eyes

Mostly quiet tears

 

We both stand our ground

Waiting for the other to move

No hope of reinforcement in s...

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Reaching out

 

All the time spent 

Nourishing the slow burning fire

The unending chatter

Within

Keeps you away

 

Existing only within the bodily frontiers

The mind as universe

A crowd of one

Next to you but

Alone

 

Too much to sort out 

Inside

To venture out towards

The unexplored mystical landscape

That is you

 

I know you have the answers 

And the r...

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Deconstruction

I do not pretend

To comprehend

This complicated construct I

Landed upon

By the cynical miracle of birth

 

But I suppose

I surmise almost

There is even more to question

With what lies outside the frame

    As with all good paintings

 

I hear you

Loud and clear

 

This incessant reconsideration

Deconstruction

Of social precepts

Is nothing but self...

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No replay

Life is short

A one shot

Until shut

 

Love is life 

No love is lost

But life is loss

 

Life is an angle

A tangle

With love intertwined 

Life and love mangled

 

Life experience is of no use

A one time fuse

To amuse or to abuse

Until defused

 

Life is forced upon

A unique happenstance 

A mysterious circumstance 

An amazing maze 

 

...

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Simple song

I am alone tonight

Sitting at the table

There is no light

Nor the end of a tunnel

 

You are here tonight

Sitting at the table

There is a ray of hope

Coming out of the rubble

 

We are here tonight

Sitting at the table

It is dark outside

A joy unfathomable

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As far as the eyes can see

The days

Spent embracing the unknown skies

With a curious, youthful, confident gaze

Expecting more, ever more

From nature

And the unseen

Are long gone

 

The times now

Are not propitious for clear sight

The teary eyes struggle

Through the crowding haze

The expanse of the horizon narrows

The light dims

 

The other weakened senses take over

Frail

Fee...

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The science of aging

Wrinkled clothes and wrinkled face

Sagging limbs and sagging mind

 

Sick friends bowled over

All strikes

No spares

 

Time pushes through the open door

The cosmic land of forgetfulness

 

Forgot the names

Forgot the dates

Forgot the words

Forget it

 

Losing all the wars

Gravitas to gravity

Wisdom to stupor

Elegance to deadpan

 

All dead end...

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There must be a way

Is there a way to be

The poison you turn to

Your best enemy

When demons hover around

Your burning flesh?

 

Is there a way to be

One of a thousand monks

Kneeling face down

Anonymous

On the cold, raw stones

Of your bodily temple?

 

Is there a way to be

A thorn in your side

To remind you of

The excruciating pain of

Not touching you?

 

There mus...

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Selfless selfie

We have it all wrong

 

Serial selfie abusers are among

The most selfless, the least egotistical

People we should strive to know

 

Really

 

This act

Repeated over and over (and over)

Of extending one’s arm

In the middle of, well, anywhere

Stopping time, and traffic and pedestrians

To share memorable pictures with, well, anyone

Of sunrises, sunsets, beaches,...

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Coming to terms

Sitting quietly on a seamless day

Contemplating the unsolvable riddle

Again

 

Searching for truth is out of the question

I am after

An agreement, a coming to terms

 

Considering…

Eternity is all time, so there is no time?

God is everywhere, so there is no God?

I ask

 

And everything else

Earthly possessions, love, friendship, happiness, desire, health, lif...

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The dreaded train

Lying in bed

At night or in the morning

Looking up through the rectangular window

At blinking lights or fleeting white clouds

A perfect still life

 

First an underground murmur

The floor rattles, the window whistles

Then the roars, the thunderous cascades

Interrupted like clock work

clickety clickety clickety

Then the angry crescendo surely

Announces ominous dev...

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Remember

If I forget…

 

The slow blissful days filled

With miraculous nothings

Are with you

 

The light hand reaching out

To whisk me from the dark, cold places I sometimes live in

Is your hand

 

The names, the dates, the places, the faces

And finally, fatally, 

You

 

Like my father before me

 

Please know

I am not me

And letting go

Is not treason

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The burning of one's church

Churches have been burning everywhere

For various reasons since their creation

Some made of wood and stone

Most of beliefs and hopes

Each time the fire takes everything on its path

Leaving behind either ashes and water, or delusion and despair

In equal parts

Each time the scorching heat inside the soul

Unbearable

 

Now the cathedral is on fire

People congregate fro...

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The possibility of a garden

Trying to access you through

Dishevelled words is

An hopelessly wandering venture

 

Your heart, mind and whole deserve

A flowery motif of 

Delicately arranged, precious words

Exquisitely nuanced in pastel shades of tender feelings

 

But I keep ploughing through

Words smelling like dirt

Grey, sad and soggy

I keep digging ever deeper until

My hands, my head hur...

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Let me tell you

Let me tell you

 

It’s not about seeking some undeniable existential truth

by scurrying through a life’s worth of pain and regrets and pain

 

Not about clinging to the shadow of an unlikely god (or not)

to justify the belief in a sliver of meaning

 

Not about the fear of technology terminating us or

augmenting our already overwhelming reality

 

Not about squeezing ...

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Listen

Silence is officially dead

 

Total silence is nowhere to be found on this planet anymore

Not in the park, the woods, a lake, a mountain, the bottom of the sea

Not in a bottle, a church, a cave, the bottom of a pit

 

And certainly not in the long dark nights of our restless minds

 

We have chased away and killed silence

Loudly, excitedly, proudly, relentlessly

 

The...

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Correspondence

Lifeless, empty words

Thrown in haste

On cold-blooded paper

 

Feelings crossed out in shame

Sincerity submerged in ink

Furtive lies

Disheartening small talk

 

All over

 

 

I received your letter

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Waste of time

Your stories are too long

I don’t have time to hear them

Don’t you know my days are numbered?

 

Your stories have too many unfinished

sentences crashing into each other until

they reach their unrevealing conclusions.

 

I can imagine perhaps your longing 

to communicate in a flow of sounds whatever

is passing through your mind at the very instant

it is passing, so i...

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Coming back

 

I am coming back to you                                                                                       For no good reason                                                                                            Eyes wide open, empty hands                                                                              To kill time                                                          ...

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