MEET THE MADNESS A Providence twilight, late November, every man and woman dressed in gray, sliding in and out of panels or emerging from dark recesses, all faces plain, hair drab, eyes shut, tongues muted, and there, high up in the skyscrapers, mouths in windows pause mid-shriek, as, down by the riverside, water rats crack on scattered bones […]
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Dear John (the Sophie to Der Rosenkavalier) By Frank De Canio Just like the Marschallin had been resigned to cede her lover to the ingénue to whom his heart would later be inclined, so Marietta’s mistress bade adieu to her so that her “Quinquin” could pursue no younger woman but a different sex than formerly she’d been accustomed to. Perhaps […]
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Fifty years ago Jane got on a plane and flew away without saying good-bye. Her parents took her, I know. She was only 14 but she could have said good-bye to me, the swain who saw her through our last three years of grammar school when she wore braces, the only girl who had them. Fifty years later at our […]
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I am guilty of skipping chapters stained with shadows Missing moments not composed I feel unworthy of your tales untold, reserved for me, while dust sleeps upon the page There […]
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THE LOVE BUSINESS (By Joseph Cavera) It’s never simple, This business you, you know Be it fading ripples Ebb and flow The rises and falls never cease To come, and go And yet…we persist We press on with what we are While the pain seems to insist That reality shapes a scar Not one we see or sense […]
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A voice says ‘cry’ A voce says ‘cry’ And I said, what shall I cry? All flash is grass, For all the beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the God blows upon it, Surely the people are grass. The grass withers the flower fades, But the word […]
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Wasting Time I’m sitting on the bench, and time is passing me by. I’m waiting for tears to fall, but it is the rain that never comes. I’m waiting for love, but there he goes again. My life, my world is the glass window of happiness, and my family does not see the woman that I am. I’m just […]
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Noblesse Oblige – By Frank De Canio It isn’t strange that some sweet girl who’s charmed a male combatant in the sexes’ war should, seeing that her former foe’s disarmed by awe, forgo hostilities she swore. For, after all, a man thus smitten cedes his prowess to exigencies of love. His heart is focused on romantic deeds and gallantry instead […]
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PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCES The backseat driver sits by my side applying the brakes, cautioning, “There’s a car!” which, by the way, is ten car lengths ahead at a corner and I am already fully aware. “Here are the keys,” I offer, stopped at the roadside, “Would you prefer to drive?” But now, she is offended, says she just […]
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Ride and Dash He can always spot ’em the ones who’ll try to run at a stoplight get the ride for free for them he keeps the .38 under the seat they always end up being the most generous of the night’s fares he can call off for the night after one or two
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