Contradicta








About the same time a generation of men perceive how uncertain their fathers are they prepare for war.




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Violence enrages but the numb and frozen aftermath is silent.

Contradicta









To want to do most things you have to do creates energy and invites contentment.




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Sharpen your mind's teeth on your mistakes.

Contradicta









The pleasure in viewing the belongings of the great masters derives from the inability to believe that they did things in the same way and places that everyone else does.


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My father never spoke so now I can't stop listening.

[for Tom Beckett]

Contradicta








Aphorisms remind us there is more to be understood in a world that suggests mostly there is more to be owned.

[for Jordan Davis]




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Everything can be known in an instant. That's all there ever was.

Contradicta









The center will not hold-no matter-everything is in orbit anyway-keep turning.



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Celebrate your sensitivity-don't be numb.The greatest danger in the world's ever increasing intrusiveness lies in accepting it.

Contradicta








The first inkling is that no one else seems to understand what you want. Then you realize you do not know. Then you know.



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The movement of life is like the wind. You can't see it but then a breeze comes along and you notice it's there; or it rushes at you suddenly and almost knocks you off your feet.

Contradicta








When I'm outside I feel more inside myself; when I'm inside I look out.




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Ahead of myself, behind the others....

Contradicta











Tried and true convictions don't raise heads but they don't lower minds either.



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Convictions without empathy can justify anything.

Contradicta






What writing begins only committment to a point of view completes.




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Talk opens a possibility to listening, listening to understanding, understanding to insight, insight to change. But anywhere along the line the chain might break.

Contradicta








At the heart of some poems there is no meaning but at the heart of every meaning there is a poem.



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What hasn't been said in what is said is the part that sings.

Contradicta








There's no time for remembering- savor everything to the quick.




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Everything gets clearer and clearer- then you realize you don't have to understand.

Contradicta






The ever vigilant ape within us (who remains, not out of necessity, but sheer compassion) continues to protect us, in spite of ourselves:- knowing full well that- out of vanity- we will deny its very existence should it reveal its face to us, or anyone else, even for an instant.


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Our affection for the books we love is similar to that of a parent for a child- as much for the fact that they very likely will outlive us as for the qualities we hold so dear.

Contradicta









Cruelty conquers briefly what kindness alone can keep.



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There is no escape: breathe deep.

Contradicta








The complacent regard the truth the way some regard a panorama of sky: too obvious for these, too distant for those.




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Even the useless isn't useless.

Contradicta


As you read further into the past writers were more often hopeful but desperately earnest; as you come closer to the present they are more often hopeless yet desperately funny.


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To span the space between the known and the unknown begin with the gulf between the thought and the said.


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*Shadows Within Shadows* Within Shadows

I googled Tom Beckett's blog Shadows Within Shadows today and found the dreaded Blogger: 404 Page Not Found.

Hopefully, Tom will return to blogging soon. I took this opportunity to reread all the chapbooks by him that I have. They are: *Wagers of Synthesis^ (Zasterle, 1997); *Separations* (Generator, 1988) and *Vanishing Points of Resemblance* (Generator, 2004). Here is a beautiful passage from "Vanishing Points of Resemblance*:

"For years I thought I knew that the accident occurred when I was five. My parents now tell me I was more like two years old at the time. Maw-maw, my grandmother, was driving and stopped abruptly. We'd just, so it has been said, purchased a goldfish. My little head smashed against the dash. Although it wasn't immediately apparent, my brain got scrambled. Up to that point, I'd been developing normally, could do somersaults, perceived spatial relations appropriately, etc. However, one day at the dinner table I flopped forward, began having convulsions. and all that changed. This was in the mid-1950's, an era that didn't celebrate differance. Unlike our current era which pretends to. I became extremely uncoordinated, the physical trauma having created a disconnect between body and brain. All cylinders weren't firing right. My mother's perfect baby wasn't perfect anymore. the coordination problem became worse still as I became ridiculously tall, having reached six feet by sixth grade and eventually topping out at 6'7" during high school."


..

Contradicta

The wise philosophize well but are lax about the obvious. Dolts are inarticulate but wary and watchful. Who rules?

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The warmer the luck the colder the attitude.
4/11
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Which is more important the word or the idea?
Which is more important your feet or the ground?

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Be decent- dissent.

4/10
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Magic remains invisible and unknown because it must by discovered unconsciously and by accident.
It cannot be located, only noticed.

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Words descending like snowflakes or rain.
A few too many and I think about shelter.

4/9

A Friend in Need

My deepest appreciation goes out to Christy Church, known to his blogger friends as Toph, whose blog Topher Tune's Times [click here] has been a favorite on my blogging trail from the moment I started out. Toph and I have occasionally stayed in touch by email over the years, and I can't begin to express my gratitude for his work in getting ::fait accompli:: back in working order. What began as a clumsy effort on my part last week to get my site meter back in working order escalated into a major nightmare when I clumsily tried to do things with html I don't know how to do. My thanks also to Toni Simon, Nada Gordon and Drew Gardner whose quick response, support and advice were very helpful as well. Toni put many hours in on an emergency basis immediately and soon made it possible for me to post my Contradicta on the::fait accompli:: sidebar.

Although I never doubted it for a moment, it brings to mind the kind of community we have here as bloggers. I think of all the blogs that have played a crucial role in my daily life for three years now - how much it means, has meant to me:- the ideas, the shared experiences, the links, the responses, the encouragement, the interactive energy- our ongoing community of bloggers.

As Ernesto Priego (Never Neutral) [click here] put it recently "Never underestimate
the power of the blog."

Toph, you're quite a guy in my archive!

As I said in the maxim just below, "Caring eyes think they can see and do anything. They are right." I was right.

Contradicta






Caring eyes think they can see and do anything. They are right.



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Some treasures grow only when they are shared- notably memories.

Contradicta






Effervescent writing, like its cousins beer and champagne, should be consumed all at once or fast as its bubbles also quickly disappear.



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Enthusiasm's effort builds a castle out of hopes; with a careless elbow, antagonism levels the playing field.

Contradicta










When I am sad I am not myself. A strange being inhabits my body who I don't know and can't recognize.


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Worry is hurry with nowhere to go.