"gales" poems
Chewie hasn’t touched his food
I hope he’ll be o.k..
It hasn’t been the same for him
Since Leia passed away.
He’s a melancholy Wookie
as anyone can see.
He mopes around the ship all day
And he’s molting terribly
Twas bad enough when Obi-wan
was struck down by Darth Vader.
But it’s no surprise when an old man dies
That’s expected, now or later.
Our Princess was a force you see
Bringing gales of laughter
which is why we want her here
and not in the hereafter.
He’s a melancholy Wookie
as anyone can see.
He mopes around the ship all day
And he’s molting terribly.
I hope one day we’ll meet again
In Mos Eisley’s Cantina
That gold bikini may not fit
But we’d still be glad to see her.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
Their boat turned in towards us
ready to board our vessel
to take us to their island,
a fastness, craggy, bleak, treeless.
To winter peat fires, gales, darkness,
weird northern tales of gods and trolls,
black nights seared by bright light curtains,
a violent Viking heritage.
A place where cold sea and ocean
overturn the crippled sea stacks,
our lives in the boarding party's
hands and our skilful Shetland pilot.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
Pain is inevitable,
Suffering is optional.
The crossroads of success,
Is always constructional.
If we could become tress,
Solid and stoic, deep rooted
In Mother Earth's flesh;
We could stand firm
Through the tempest, unswayed.
But we are only humans.
Covered in darkness.
Hiding behind our fears,
Timidly withdrawing from
The ominous tempest.
So, embrace the fury,
The daunting gales that
Once were scary.
After all, you can't
Stop the waves,
But you can learn to surf.
And even if you sank,
Deeper into the void,
At least you'll drown
Knowing there was
Beauty In The Struggle.
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 11, 2019 at 10:42 AM UTC
(Quote by Spike Milligan)
One very wise man sat and said
That, long before this world is dead
This planet’s problems won’t be solved
By reasoning which, though now evolved,
has got us, where we now do sit,
Afloat neck deep in mankind’s ****
There’s SARs, Ebola, AIDs, Bird flu
And in the woodwork, West Nile too,
Each replicating viral spat
To mutate, (at the drop of a hat),
To complicate enviro’s stew
Of global degredation’s brew.
Urban spread and over stocking
**** deforestation’s shocking,
Depletion of aquatic life
Intrinsically creating strife,
Industrial pollution’s goo
Ozone depletion... ALL FOR YOU!
*Environmental degradation
Means the world’s a weaker place,
Susceptible to malady
Wide spread across the human race.
Those animals in corn fed stalls
Who never get to see the sun
Or graze green grass where honey bees
Are vanquished by varroha’s fun.
Too late to save the Hector’s dolphin
Conservation’s lost it’s tools,
Rastafarian hootchie smokers,
Save the whales to **** the fools.
Governments sell the carbon credits
Everybody smells a rat
Restorations for the birds
And social conscience creamed the cat.
****** greenies own the airwaves
No one gives a flying ****
That good artesian water’s poisoned
By good farmer’s leached out muck.
CO2 in global warming
Sings it’s song of fast decline
Glacial retreat a-roaring
Bass relief in blood *****
I guess the little children’s future
Most depends on lady luck,
Humankind in mass denial
Most don’t give a flying ****
Marshalg
In retreat to Taranaki’s green haven in the gales of the equinox.
21 September 2011
Sep 21, 2011
Sep 21, 2011 at 2:09 AM UTC
To distant lands
And open doors,
To bright white sands
On distant shores,
I must away.
I cannot stay.
Set free the sails!
We must make haste
To catch the gales!
No time must waste
To seize the day;
Anchors aweigh!
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
(Quote by Spike Milligan)
One very wise man sat and said
That, long before this world is dead
This planet’s problems won’t be solved
By reasoning which, though now evolved,
has got us, where we now do sit,
Afloat neck deep in mankind’s ****
There’s SARs, Ebola, AIDs, Bird flu
And in the woodwork, West Nile too,
Each replicating viral spat
To mutate, (at the drop of a hat),
To complicate enviro’s stew
Of global degredation’s brew.
Urban spread and over stocking
**** deforestation’s shocking,
Depletion of aquatic life
Intrinsically creating strife,
Industrial pollution’s goo
Ozone depletion... ALL FOR YOU!
Environmental degradation
Means the world’s a weaker place,
Susceptible to malady
Wide spread across the human race.
Those animals in corn fed stalls
Who never get to see the sun
Or graze green grass where honey bees
Are vanquished by varroha’s fun.
Too late to save the Hector’s dolphin
Conservation’s lost it’s tools,
Rastafarian hootchie smokers,
Save the whales to **** the fools.
Governments sell the carbon credits
Everybody smells a rat
Restorations for the birds
And social conscience creamed the cat.
****** greenies own the airwaves
No one gives a flying ****
That good artesian water’s poisoned
By good farmer’s leached out muck.
CO2 in global warming
Sings it’s song of fast decline
Glacial retreat a-roaring
Bass relief in blood *****
I guess the little children’s future
Most depends on lady luck,
Humankind in mass denial
Most don’t give a flying ****
Marshalg
In retreat to Taranaki’s green haven in the gales of the equinox.
21 September 2011
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 3:14 AM UTC
whisk me away on a ship that's not there.
To an island full of gators! that have been covered in hair.
exploring misty mountains! and climbing epic trees!
diving to the bottom, of the air in the breeze.
imagine a life like that, think of life full of tales!
fighting great monsters, that has a full nine tails!
take me away to a life just with you,
to a world of bickering, but never between two.
now the Lord calls us in, to sleep in her kites.
dreams of flying high, and falling in love with the night.
as you dream away beneath me, I wonder sad and clear.
what comes of tomorrow, if the air is mighty queer?
do we stay inside our castle and find an evil spy?
or go outside in the gales?
and let our imagination,
take flight.
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 11:29 PM UTC
Another silent mid-Fall afternoon
Icy raindrops slash into my neck
The forecast calls for falling thumbtacks soon
One thin umbrella folding
Just 18 feet to the front step
With champagne acquainted
But forgot how to sip it
I slurp it down, eager,
'til I sit soaked and dripping
In time, fevered minds
will lower ears made for hearing
under waves of migraines
as mighty storm fronts are nearing
So I close down the bars and stumble home under awnings
Just to search for your name among newspaper cuttings
I've read the whole issue
and I've frowned over headlines
put it down
Now, soaked or dry, I've got only time
I've wasted so much of it losing my mind
I'm blind in the rain that now sticks in my hide
and they were right--
The forecast called for this squall to last all night
Another lonely mid-Fall morning walk
I follow gangs of specters in their steps
And, in the crunching gravel, ghosts will talk
November winds come howling
The second I leave my front step
The flavor's familiar
It comes back every morning,
when sunlight and sparrows
ignore tornado warnings
So the gales pick up strength
and a small bird's bones are hollow
The clouds lay oceans down
setting many sips to swallow
"So goodnight." I depart, but circle back in my wanderings
I'll always wind up here--shaky, ash-faced and yawning
I've read this before
it's printed on poor paper
in red ink
I can't say why I'm still walking by
Those other front doorsteps that I never try
The thick thumbtack rain stopped but I can't stay dry
the ghosts were right--
But if I find your name I might stop by.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 7:09 PM UTC
30
Adrift! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?
So Sailors say—on yesterday—
Just as the dusk was brown
One little boat gave up its strife
And gurgled down and down.
So angels say—on yesterday—
Just as the dawn was red
One little boat—o’erspent with gales—
Retrimmed its masts—redecked its sails—
And shot—exultant on!
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Over on the crescent wing
The bitter gales bring waves of rain:
Listen. Frozen windows sing.
Enraptured by the searing pain
Like pestilence in hurricane.
Buildings rise up to the halls
Impenetrable planet-bane
As summer lost, and spring withal.
Then the writhing storm-clouds bring
A storm of ice and wind again:
The sun rears up, but sets during.
And past the steel-laden plane
Silver orbs first wax, then wane
Then plaster to the mighty wall
Midnight buses, lane-by-lane,
Of nature not, but city fool.
Ascended like a spiteful King
The whispers rise, then sink in shame
No sound is here, no, not a thing.
Soaking in like liquor-stains
The buildings survey their domain
Not city-life, nor life at all;
They wander in the pouring rain
Where love is lost beneath the sprawl.
Tears and laughter, much the same
All are whispers, doomed to fall.
Dystopia without a name:
Not so distant after all.
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 5:19 PM UTC
Up in the crows nest with the hawsers,a steel vest that ran up the ship and fastened itself to the West wind that blew,
sat, Tamale the blue,
so named, because of his dour expression,that was compressed on his features like a cold North depression,
and he wailed at the gales,the unfairness of being, a hangdog of a ****** who saw nothing worth seeing.
The salt etched in deep and slept in his face though the vessel awake,raced on in the night,
Tamale saw nothing until the Bosun cried, 'land of the starboard bow'
too late then, when Tamale awoke,the ship hit the reef line and the hull broke in two,
and Tamale the blue was thrown down to meet his very first day in the depths of the deep.
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 5:46 PM UTC
I'd like to catch a songbird when I visit.
One that only lives near your house,
One I've never heard.
I'd like to catch a songbird,
And have it sing for me
The songs you hear each morning.
I'd like to watch the moon when it rises.
Lifting itself over the earth, reflecting
As it passes my window.
I'd like to watch the moon,
The same white moon
That you might be watching tonight.
I'd like to hold the wind in a mason jar.
The warm little south wind
That chuckles and breezes northward.
I'd like to hold it down,
Whisper my hellos into its gales,
And let it go darting off northwards -
Whistling and running like a fugitive
To you.
Jun 16, 2011
Jun 16, 2011 at 3:11 AM UTC
I
Not once in all our days of poignant love,
Did I a single instant give to thee
My undivided being wholly free.
Not all thy potent passion could remove
The barrier that loomed between to prove
The full supreme surrendering of me.
Oh, I was beaten, helpless utterly
Against the shadow-fact with which I strove.
For when a cruel power forced me to face
The truth which poisoned our illicit wine,
That even I was faithless to my race
Bleeding beneath the iron hand of thine,
Our union seemed a monstrous thing and base!
I was an outcast from thy world and mine.
II
Adventure-seasoned and storm-buffeted,
I shun all signs of anchorage, because
The zest of life exceeds the bound of laws.
New gales of tropic fury round my head
Break lashing me through hours of soulful dread;
But when the terror thins and, spent, withdraws,
Leaving me wondering awhile, I pause--
But soon again the risky ways I tread!
No rigid road for me, no peace, no rest,
While molten elements run through my blood;
And beauty-burning bodies manifest
Their warm, heart-melting motions to be wooed;
And passion boldly rising in my breast,
Like rivers of the Spring, lets loose its flood.
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ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow’r,
Thou’s met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow’r,
Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it’s no thy neebor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee ‘mang the dewy weet,
Wi’ spreckled breast!
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce reared above the parent-earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,
High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random bield
O’ clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy ***** sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!
Such is the fate of artless Maid,
Sweet flow’ret of the rural shade!
By love’s simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
Low i’ the dust.
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On Life’s rough ocean luckless starred!
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o’er!
Such fate to suffering worth is giv’n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv’n,
By human pride or cunning driv’n
To mis’ry’s brink,
Till wrenched of ev’ry stay but Heav’n,
He, ruined, sink!
Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate,
That fate is thine -no distant date;
Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crushed beneath the furrow’s weight,
Shall be thy doom!
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Winter, winter how we feel your icy touch
The earth is now under your freezing clutch
All that falls in our ears is the howl of gales from far
The night sky is covered in grayness without a single star
In the dawn, nowhere can one spot the buzzing bees
Icicles hang from boughs of leafless trees
Birds sit with drooping wings in their woody nests
Within eye shot, no trace of any roaming beasts
Trees stand sleeping in the biting cold
And the sun has lost its bright sheen of gold
From nowhere comes the song of a single bird
On the slopes, one cannot sight the grazing herd
Roof tops are crusted with flakes of snow
Which the sun with sharp beams alone can thaw
Piles of snow lie heaped on the barren ground
And the entire Earth lies in a sea of ice drowned
Busy streets and pavements are now lying bare
People stay indoors and to be out, they hardly dare
The rodents have gone into hibernation in their ditch
And life altogether has gone out of pitch
In the smiting chill of a dreadful wintry night
When through every fiber n’ nerve is the cold bite
How we like to sit cocooned beside the hearth
Sipping a cup of steaming tea in rising mirth
In such quiet hours, one can peruse into the pages of tomes
That will transport one to enchanting magical zones
Or engage in a hearty chat with friends and family
Thus turning even the bleakest hours sweet and lively
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 5:59 AM UTC
+
A bed-sits high and dry,marooned on a sandbank of night.
As radio 4-casts its nets to isolated ships like me that rudderless drift on into the light.
Still dark outside,no sounds,save the distant echoing bark of a hungry fox ----streets away.
Another dawn ripped blackbin bag of a day creeps and ouzes in
Heavy unfocused lids fogged in the steamy smokeyness of tea and a first fag
plenty of time plenty of time.
Time before the world wakes to the morning pips and its flushing, brushing, rushing sounds
A greyness gathers just beyound my pained curtains, as with a silent sigh a roosted blackbird clears its fasted throat.
Then as if by magic I 'm carried, scimming high above and beyound this mooring set in a silvered sea,on a welcomed mantra known to all.
As if a calling pray at day break,following each word in a moment subline
Un angle vole un angle vole.
Rockall - Malin - Hebrides
Humber - Fisher - German bight
Thames - Dover - Wight.
Each single secert understood and noted only by a few as I glide over in paced, pausey surf rolling words
North northeast - 994 - Falling slowly - Low pressure moving away - Gales 8 very poor - Backing 3-4 later - Mainly good - Becoming variable - Syclonic later - Increasing 6-7 mainly west - Swally showers for a time - Fair - Good.
Oh so good, each pure English comforting sounds heard over lapping waves of air.
The bushy wet nosed fox sulks and cowers away from the breaking sun, as the blackbird draws a dewdropped breath though golden nib and tapping gently, call a hidden choir into song just for me.
Reminding me of the things I'd for gotten I care about.
Sharp timed unwelcomed pips flood the ears to prise open sticky eyes from promised dreams and spoon-cuddles warm
As I set forth on wetted pavements, ready to decline into my charted day.
Yet smiling as if blessed and no longer alone
But filled with early morning salty thoughts of strangers
I
have
yet
to
meet
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 7:47 AM UTC
I
__
i am so much smaller than you
and i can ever
believe...
and you are so much smaller
than you and
i know.
i sit within the winds,
those summer breezes,
some gusty gales, perhaps,
feeling
'the tug
and toss
of its fabulous force
rippling
churning
combing the thinning grey hair on my tired head,
my clothing,
so indistinct,
flapping,
furling,
floating, --filled with this seen-un-seen presence,
and i know
a am so small,
and my life so
ludicrous,
like the air
that comes
and goes
out of its own control,
but,
i am too small,
and unable
to stop this, its invisible assault.
II
__
when i am a-float upon
the great lakes, the oceans
the
rolling
rivers
i live
like a tiny slab of flotsam or
driftwood
sailing
slowly,
circularly,
(oh-so!) quietly
running,
reeling the peeling painted oars of my boat
against
the grainy flashing surface of the waters
rumbling,
rolling
away
this insatiable yearning
to go wherever it takes me to go, but
i know
i am very small,
and cannot control the eddy's creeping currents-
constant-currents
thus
submitting
my wayfaring self
to the
unfathomable.
III
__
these trees towering
above me
around me,
the sapling,
the blanketing
(in my lifetime)
blooming branches
creating
an emotional, outer, physical, inner, spiritual
dwindling
like the leaves left shivering beneath the cold winter's frost,
once casually
falling,
dropping,
drying up around my soul
slipping
into silent winter slumber,
to awaken
again...
--and then!
(to the dismay of my self-enlightened discovery)
i see
how small
i am
only to return again
from that brownish-moist
soil-bed
like a seed
beneath
the ground
never sprouting,
only fogetting,
the once and always forvever
and ever
the natural
insignificance
of being.
Jul 10, 2010
Jul 10, 2010 at 3:46 PM UTC
I like it here.
Damp air clinging to my skin, clinging to my clothes,
Grey skies laughing at pewter water,
Wind tossed seagulls reeling passed
Individual calls demanding attention; their joint voice hushing into the soundtrack of this place.
Buildings cluttered together for protection from blasting winter gales,
Yet all jostling for a glimpse of the harbour.
Guess in their own sleepy ways they like the thrill of danger.
Their red tiles roofs so reminiscent of Mediterranean towns,
But inescapably speak of home.
People traipse past, creating the shifting landscape of this place.
Their own lives and concerns mingling to create a vast sea of humanity,
Mirrored by the roiling sea...
Just beyond the safety of
This harbour.
This bench.
This packet of vinegar soaked chips.
I'm glad it's you here with me
Glad I can feel your soul soar with mine at the salty air and eroded stone.
Beside me
Hunched into your coat
Gazing out.
We don't touch
But I feel you there
With me.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 10:49 PM UTC
I see you from behind my close'd eyes.
O maelstrom tamed, you swirl in colors grand.
From up above gaze down the stars of man,
Those wise deciders, forgers of the skies,
Mechanics of desire need not rise.
Thine ethos shines a light across the land.
Your voice grants sight to eyes of sordid sand.
thine ballads tempt the burning Sun to rise.
You shake my soul as gales doth shake the trees.
O, quake my bones and shed thine holy rays.
To drown in gazes thine would be to breathe;
The waves flood hues in spotless worlds of gray.
up high you hold me, falling to my knees.
O bloom for me, as flowers bloom for May.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 11:00 AM UTC
The city plays cat and mouse
and pefects the fear.
Jaggered lights dazzle
the victim
and nautical terms are resurrected as shanking.
Hospitals in an ode to Johannesburg's ingenuity
repair the injurious knife wounds
caused not by weekend lighter fuel
but a postcode lottery
undone only by the postman.
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 3:31 PM UTC
194
On this long storm the Rainbow rose—
On this late Morn—the Sun—
The clouds—like listless Elephants—
Horizons—straggled down—
The Birds rose smiling, in their nests—
The gales—indeed—were done—
Alas, how heedless were the eyes—
On whom the summer shone!
The quiet nonchalance of death—
No Daybreak—can bestir—
The slow—Archangel’s syllables
Must awaken her!
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I stand upon a familiar shore,
of white sands and ocean waves,
looked upon so many years before,
you and I joined as true loves slaves.
Salten sea breeze fresh upon my face,
casting mist and haze like some dream,
where I see that other time in this place,
bound forever, or so it then did seem.
In this place I now stand so all alone.
as if drawn across rolling dark water,
to calmer days once warmly known,
before love like tide ebbed unto it's slaughter.
Days when loneliness was an unknown.
where sun was warm, and seas were still,
before any storm squall gales had blown,
or wave and wind wrought it's winters chill.
You alone were there to share my time,
I recall beauties smile upon your face,
beauty before tears performed their crime,
it was you that made this a perfect place.
But this sand now beneath my feet,
leads nowhere I would wish to go.
My memories now of loves defeat,
in a time my heart still longs to know.
Sand worn away and faded coastal dreams,
waves roll and ebb high upon the shore,
eroded memories by times cold extremes,
Never to know the beach as in those years before.
Mar 31, 2022
Mar 31, 2022 at 12:20 PM UTC
Three thousand miles
navigating a storm
without drop of bad weather
Abacus odometer clicks
rotating forward ―
spinning with the
world go round
Circling back down
a long and winding road;
where unforgotten memories
were once searchingly explored,
untrodden pathways
coursing way up north of alone
on the low highway
Now an aging shepherd
wonders without a compass ;
a vagabond deprived of light
from an ever blurring north star
Heart empty as a gas tank
with a broke down gauge,
running on fumes of hope
for unpromised tomorrows
Running from loneliness
just to be on the run
The gales of silence bellow
No feelings I can see ― lay me low
Wild-eyed daydreams
of Full sails billow out
through the windshield,
only hearing the unspoken
moments sigh restlessly ―
The dull droning road rumble
re-sighs renunciatively,
a tired monotone voice
mimicking the loathe silent echo
wallowing in an
omnipresent hollow void
deriding unspoken chaos
between the passing centerlines ―
A frost heave pothole erupts,
with a leaf-spring rattling thud,
as a fleeting cloud of dust arises,
set adrift with the draught
headed off the east side
of the Alcan highway:
blown way outside the lines,
towards the Alberta prairie
White knuckled steering wheel
held sway, rolling down
a beckoning wilderness
reincarnation;
default reset button paused ―
stuck in a moment ― until another jaw rattling
frost-heave pothole in the highway,
jars it free
Leaving it all behind
like a sigh breathed
in a silence a heart has outgrown;
just a fleeting cloud of dissipating dust,..
a paling whisper
the past seems to send forth
like a fading last breath
Letting it all unfold to become what it is
harlon rivers ... May 2018
... travelogue 2 of some
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!
Paint me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.
Display me ****** above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.
Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme).
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.
This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs
Jackknifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.
Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.
(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)
Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.
The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste
Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.
But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat.
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