Monthly Archives: October 2012

Oct19

The Pen & The Sword

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A conceit 

In an electronic world is one permitted to muse upon the future of expressions such as ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’? Today, can we say, ‘the (computer) key is mightier than the sword? Or, more appropriately, the ‘chip is mightier than the missile’? Then too, with the integration of computers/electronics and warheads/missiles does a comparison exist? After all neither one can be mightier than the other when they are, in fact, the same. Or, should we, in musing, revert to what the expression originally meant, ‘that an idea expressed in words can effect more change faster and sooner and with further reaching implications than a single, short, swift death’?

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Oct17

Halifax Streets

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From a place called Leeds Street

You can see the ocean

Behind an institute of technology

That spawned engineers and builders

The kind that mauled the hillsides with roads

And marshalled the trees

Into soldierly rows

Gouging out in a mere two centuries

What Nature had husbanded

Soil on rock, soil on soil, layer upon layer

Too thin a soil belt to hold a redwood tree

It bravely sustained pines and hemlock,

Birch, maple, elm and cedar

Too few to people the hills with now

They have become mere street names.

Oct15

Memories of Nova Scotia – Cape Bretonese

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Cape Bretonese! The article below has been recovered from an old copy circa 2002 of The Chronicle-Herald, the renowned daily newspaper that has delivered news of the world, Canada and Nova Scotia to the people of the province since 1875.  I am proud to say that I worked there as an advertising copywriter from 1994 to 2003.

It is now several years since I left the Herald – as I moved to the Kingdom of Bahrain – but I still feel that I belong to that great community known affectionately as the Herald Family.  In addition, as any Bluenose Nova Scotian will tell you, once you become a Nova Scotian you’ll always be a Nova Scotian no matter where you go… or as they like to say “you can take the Nova Scotian out of Nova Scotia, but you can’t … (take Nova Scotia out of the Nova Scotian)”.

I dedicate this section of the blog to the memory of that most beautiful part of the world where the friendly warmth of the people can dispel even the coldest winter day.

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Oct15

A Nova Scotia summer in the country

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A bunch of lupines, bending in the sun

Holding their sides and laughing just for fun

Too hysterical from giggling at Life and Lunacy

To stop and share their little joke with me.

A crowd of lupines, gathered in a field

Gossiping in knots of purple, pink and green

Smiling at the clouds, chatting on their knees

Unmindful of the weather and the sudden chilling breeze.

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Oct15

Growing Away

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“Hello,” he said, “I’m Amar.”

“Hello. I’m alone.”

Amar laughed. “Do you always have these opening lines?”

“Not always. I never do anything always. But then I don’t always say never to anything, so perhaps I do.”

“What a complicated person you are,” said Amar.

“Do you always make snap judgements?”

And that was how we met.

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Oct15

Welcome to Fictionpals

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This is a place where I hope to publish some of my writings as well as contributions from visitors like you! Naturally, I will decide what should appear and may edit and adjust your works as I see fit. Please send in whatever genre you’d like: from prose and essays to stories – both factual and fictional, from verse that rhymes or flows wherever your muse takes you to funny tales. All I ask is that you remember that this is a general site and no adult piece should appear here. Thank you. All genres welcome – poetry, prose, prose poems, stories, dramatic pieces, essays up to 1500 words are welcome. Just remember this is a general viewer site. If I deem a piece of writing unsuitable it will not be published.

Oct15

I’m an Owl not a Lark!

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I had a fractured sleep last night

No splints or plasters

Could knit it together

Thereafter the pain of it

Has left me yawning … all morning

I’m an owl not a lark

As the day proceeds

I can feel my body’s rhythms

As they pick up speed

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