It was back when we all had plenty of time. A late night call. I was up. Scribbling something unmemorable in a spiral notebook under the circular pool of light cast by a metal gooseneck lamp. The caller ID said Los Angeles. I remembered the number. Even after two...
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I am not known for being hesitant to offer my opinion. I would stand on a street corner and pass out opinions to unsuspecting passers-by if they would just stop hauling me off to the pokey for doing so. But I have found I am reticent to offer them...
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In The Way, Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen), a successful Southern California ophthalmologist, satisfied with the ordered life he has chosen, finds himself on an unexpected trek. Avery is a decent man—a doctor who will come to the office at eight in the morning to accommodate a patient’s schedule—but one...
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He lard-lumbered into my office and the air instantly blossomed with his gin-mill perfume—stale beer, prehistoric Lucky Strikes, all veiled with a varnish of sen-sen. Naturally, that put me in the mind to have a snort myself. But it wasn’t quite 10 a.m. yet, and that’s a rule I...
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I wait. Watching the child laboriously take a shallow breath, struggle, and exhale. He will die. It has been ordained. But it will not happen soon. His mother prays, but it is not enough. Why are her words not enough to change a fate? I have often heard the...
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Duke’s front door blew open and banged into the book shelf, sending his three prized Hemingway hard-backed novels cascading to the floor. It woke him up from his deep slumber, but he ignored it at first; he simply turned over while rolling up in the comforting quilt handcrafted years...
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“If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man’s intelligence and his comprehension…would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.” ~President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Press Conference, Washington, DC,...
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Memory is a cowardly thing. It hides truth in dark molasses. It is melancholy, the taste of salt. Love still smells of moss and desperation, his every sneer was mine to sew into a shawl of hopelessness. Or perhaps, it was never how I remember now. “Will you stay...
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Back in the day, I played a mean game of golf, good enough to win tournaments and club championships and attract local attention. I worked at it, spending countless hours on the practice range, often under the tutelage of the club’s professional. I even worked at the golf course,...
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The unsightly will be moved from view lest you be offended we’ll move the homeless out of town Lest you be reminded. We’ll scrub the airport nice and clean panhandling is illegal there’ll be no beggars in our streets lest you find them disconcerting. Lots of cops and cameras...
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My heart throbs with the tint of your blushes. Your glance reveals the present’s inward truth: Color is the pigment and the feeling – Those who do not fade can never blossom. Scorn others for seeing mere surfaces - I revel in the fullness of beauty – I...
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In 410 A.D., a Roman soldier stood, sword in hand. At the other end of the sword, on the ground, lay his fellow soldier. The lifeless body belonged to the husband of the woman he desired. The fierce wind, known in this part of the world as an ally...
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I won’t give you flowers, Flowers look pretty For a while But then they die. I won’t give you candy, Candy pleases the taste buds But frightens the waist line And never lasts very long. I won’t give you jewelry Though it sparkles like you And...
there’s the sea, the color of amaranth, and thunder threatening sky, mazarine, pebbled beach that cuts through skin, reminds her there’s no love without pain, there never is they have danced on the sand, away from prying eyes, kisses on her neck, smiling until faces hurt, she must run,...
Many writers I know have led unique, interesting and challenging lives. We all had some contributing event or events that helped us open the door to our own creativity a little wider. For some of us, it was all relatively mundane, and positive - parents, teachers, siblings, friends telling us that they thought what we wrote worth reading. read on...
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