Stage Three

no one enters the house using the door.
The doors close without the use of hinges and locks.
The living room is turned upside down.
The traces of my steps are a myriad labyrinths of
puzzles, cross, crescent, moon, sun, stars, and

dead leaves just below the body of a rotting log.
Log on. Say some more. This is freedom.
The railings are roses. The stairs are rivers.
The walls are faces of the one you make love.
The roofs are ideas. Theories live there and metaphors
Abound in the living room.There is an old piano and you
Begin to play: Vienna woods. You dance the waltz with her.

Whispers mossy on the carpets. The toilet is kept empty
And shiny white tiles, glossy to the feel of your fingers.
The bedroom is bare. You too complete the picture.
An hour of sex. Gracious! This house is the most beautiful
House of our neighborhood.

It is not our home yet. Tomorrow we unpack.
The distance is our journey. And it is somewhere else
With someone you still love. It is not I.

I am just a picture: black and white, and dusty.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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A Memory Of Love

I came upon a house so bare.
I knew there could be no one there.
I wished to enter so I knocked.
No one answered. The door was locked.
I saw a window through which I peered
and saw it looked just as I feared,
lonely, deserted, cold and musty
cobwebs hanging, everything dusty.

The need to go inside
was an urgency I could not hide.
Should I break the door or shatter the pane?
Encouragement came when I felt the rain.
I entered slowly and looked around
amazed and astounded at what I found.
Every room was empty but for one,
a bedroom with chair facing towards sun.

Beside the chair was a frame
holding the picture of a girl with no name.
Curiosity got the best of me
so I turned it over and I did see
her name scribbled hastily.
'Janette, my love I give to you
this picture I love to sit and view.'
and then I placed it back.

The house was no longer cold to me
for it housed a loving memory.
I left it right beside the chair
as if the lover still was there.
Upon leaving the bedroom I closed the door
so it would stay as it was before.
My intrusion on this private place
as I exited left a smile on my face.

poem by Edwina ReizerReport problemRelated quotes
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This House Is Empty Now (feat. Burt Bacharach)

These rooms play tricks upon you
Remember when they were always filled with laughter?
But now they're quite deserted
They seem to just echo voices raised in anger
Maybe you will see my face
Reflected there on the pane
In the window of our poor
Forlorn and broken home
Still this house is empty now
There's nothing I can do
To make you want to stay
So tell me how
Am I supposed to live without you?
These walls were lined with pictures
Remember the glass we charged in celebration?
But now I fill my life up
With all that I can to deaden this sensation
Do you recognize the face
Fixed in that fine silver frame
Were you really so unhappy then?
You never said
So this house is empty now
There's nothing I can do
To make you want to stay
So tell me how
Am I supposed to live without you?
Oh, if I could just become forgetful
When night seems endless
Does the extinguished candle care
About the darkness?
It's funny how my memry
Will bring you so close then make you disappear
Meanwhile all our friends must choose
Who they will favour, who they will lose
Hang the garland high or close the door
And throw away the key
This house is empty now
There's no one living here
You have to care about
This house is empty now
There's nothing I can do
To make you want to stay
So tell me how
Am I supposed to live without you?
This house is empty now
There's no one living here
You have to care about
This house is empty now
There's nothing I can do
To make you want to stay
So tell me how
Am I supposed to live without you

song performed by by Elvis CostelloReport problemRelated quotes
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This House Is Empty Now

(costello/bacharach)
These rooms play tricks upon you
Remember when they were always filled with laughter
But now theyre quite deserted
They seem to just echo voices raised in anger
Maybe you will see my face
Reflected there on the pane
In the window up above for long
In broken home
Yet this house is empty now
Theres nothing I can do
To make you want to stay
So tell me how am I supposed to live without you
These walls were lined with pictures
Remember the glass we charged in celebration
But now I fill my life up
With all that I can to deaden this sensation
Do you recognize the face
Fixed in that fine silver frame
Were you really so unhappy there
You never said
So this house is empty now
Theres nothing I can do to make you want to stay
So tell me how am I supposed to live without you
Oh, if I could just become forgetful
When night seems endless
Does the extinguished candle care
About the darkness
Its funny how the memory
Will bring you so close then make you disappear
Meanwhile all our friends must choose
Who they will favour, who they will lose
Hang the garland high, or close the door
Or throw away the key
This house is empty now
Theres no one living here
You have to care about
This house is empty now
Theres nothing I can do
To make you want to stay
So tell me how am I supposed to live without you
This house is empty now
This house is empty now
Theres nothing I can do
This house is empty now
This house is empty now

song performed by by Elvis CostelloReport problemRelated quotes
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A House Is Not A Home

(burt bacharach / hal david)
A chair is still a chair
Even though theres no-one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When theres no-one there to hold you tight
And no-one there you can kiss goodnight
A room is still a room
Even though theres nothing there but gloom
But a room is not a house
And a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart
Now and then I call your name
And suddenly your voice appears
But its just a crazy game
When it ends, it ends in tears
Darling, have a heart
Dont let one mistake keep us apart
Im not meant to live alone
Turn this house into a home
When I climb the stairs
And turn the key
Oh, please be there
Still in love with me
Im not meant to live alone
Turn this house into a home
When I climb the stairs
And turn the key
Oh, please be there
Still in love with me

song performed by by Dusty SpringfieldReport problemRelated quotes
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House Of The Heart

So many people live in the house of the heart
And all the people that lives in the house of the heart
Are very at the house of the heart
Because they don't live alone
The house of the heart is a very big house
With 10 bedrooms,1 kitchen, a dining room,1 large living room, and 5
Bathrooms
At the house of the heart everybody sleeps in their own bedroom

poem by Aldo KraasReport problemRelated quotes
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This House is no Longer a Home

As I walk down the lonely street
Knees get weak, can barely keep my feet
I see the fence, the gate, the porch
From where you gazed and lit my torch
I see the house, the room, the bed
Your voice still ringing in my head
You said you didn't love anymore
And you walked out the door
The walls were painted antique white
Semi-gloss to bring in the light
Pictures hung on every wall
With memories of us all
Now the fence is falling, the flowers dying
Tears fall through the cracks from all the crying
The gate is broken and no one can come in
It's a shame even the birds won't sing
But this house is no longher a home
You chose freedom, you chose to roam
This house is no longer a home
Like a beer without foam
A classic car without chrome
You chose to roam
Now this house is no longer a home
I recall that first night
We made love in the full moonlight
Tfhe air was filled with ecstasy
Our moans sang a symphony
Our bodies became one
As we ventured till the morning sun
But love doesn't live here anymore
I can still hear the slamming of the door
I can feel the vibration of every picture frame
As I stand here wondering who's to blame

poem by Alfred RamosReport problemRelated quotes
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Song

I came to the door of the House of Love
And knocked as the starry night went by;
And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said
"It is I."

And Love looked down from a lattice above
Where the roses were dry as the lips of the dead:
"There is not room in the House of Love
For you both," he said.

I plucked a leaf from the porch and crept
Away through a desert of scoffs and scorns
To a lonely place where I prayed and wept
And wove me a crown of thorns.

I came once more to the House of Love
And knocked, ah, softly and wistfully,
And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said
"None now but thee."

And the great doors opened wide apart
And a voice rang out from a glory of light,
"Make room, make room for a faithful heart
In the House of Love, to-night."

poem by Alfred NoyesReport problemRelated quotes
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The house that died

An Empty house
An era bygone
Fragrant shadows
Echoes mourn

Smiles and tears
Joyous... morbid
Swift emotions
Of hues myriad

They say we bury
Our emotions alive
And forget in a hurry
But they live and thrive

This house... it lives
Through Echoes and smells
Stored memories behind its walls
Mystic house... story unfurls

A memory for every one who lived
Every single sigh they heaved
A voice whispers to tell the tale
Every memory has a smell

A ball room...under keys and lock
Wooden floor
Smells of rose and holy hock
Symphony rings
True to the core

Dining room
With its sounds
Clatter of spoons
“Cheers”...doing rounds

Nursery room
Giggling smiles
Whispering winds
On broken tiles

A chimney stands
Gathering soot
Smell of fire
Burning wood

And the kitchen
The lover’s nook
For the butler and the cook
Echoes of ladle
Hitting the pan
Boiling pot
And smoking can

A bed room smells of
Shadow and light
Echoes of love talks
Of the passionate lusty nights

The house that died
To live once more
Through smell’s portal and echoes door


Is calling out to you!

poem by Saurabh SomReport problemRelated quotes
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The Player Piano

I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House
Run by a lady my age. She was gay.
When I told her that I came from Pasadena
She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena
When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus."

I felt that I had met someone from home.
No, not Pasadena, Fatty Arbuckle.
Who's that? Oh, something that we had in common
Like -- like -- the false armistice. Piano rolls.
She told me her house was the first Pancake House

East of the Mississippi, and I showed her
A picture of my grandson. Going home --
Home to the hotel -- I began to hum,
"Smile a while, I bid you sad adieu,
When the clouds roll back I'll come to you."

Let's brush our hair before we go to bed,
I say to the old friend who lives in my mirror.
I remember how I'd brush my mother's hair
Before she bobbed it. How long has it been
Since I hit my funnybone? had a scab on my knee?

Here are Mother and Father in a photograph,
Father's holding me.... They both look so young.
I'm so much older than they are. Look at them,
Two babies with their baby. I don't blame you,
You weren't old enough to know any better;

If I could I'd go back, sit down by you both,
And sign our true armistice: you weren't to blame.
I shut my eyes and there's our living room.
The piano's playing something by Chopin,
And Mother and Father and their little girl

Listen. Look, the keys go down by themselves!
I go over, hold my hands out, play I play --
If only, somehow, I had learned to live!
The three of us sit watching, as my waltz
Plays itself out a half-inch from my fingers.

poem by Randall JarrellReport problemRelated quotes
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The White Room

(SpringfieldVallance)
I can see her at her windows watching,
locked away inside her skin,
I can see her but I can't get to her, she won't come out,
and she won't let me into
The white room (she's living in)
Lying alone til she comes undone
In the white room, she burns for the real thing.
But it won't come.
In her head is the same obsession
and all the bottles and pills won't heal her heart.
She heard his last confession
and every word just tears her apart
In the white room (locked away)
doing time till her time is done
In the white room there's so much to say
but the words won't come.
Come back to the land of the living,
when you gonna break the chain,
there's so much too much that you're leaving
and you're never gonna stop the rain
In the white room.
waiting for the call that never comes
in the white room, she awaits.
Look at something long enough you'll find,
that the splinters and the cracks begin to show,
I'll be the first in line when the walls start falling
and she lets go of
The white room (it's late)
living alone only makes you numb
In the white room she burns for the real thing
but it won't come
In the white room (she's living in) I think its time
that you're time is done,
In the white room she burns
In the white room (it's late)
lying alone till she comes undone
In the white room she awaits
In the white room

song performed by by Rick SpringfieldReport problemRelated quotes
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Stranger In My Own House

(a capella: she said: boy, your luck is running out...she make me feel like a stranger...in my own house)
I come stumbling in at a quarter to three
To the sound of my own dog growlin at me
Im scared to move or turn on a light
Youve got me creepin around in the dark
Like a thief in the night
Ive got no excuse, I should have known
Ive got no place to live
I never feel at home
I walk into the kitchen to see whats there
Im tired and Im hungry but the cupboards bare
Ive been working all day and all night too
I cant believe this is all I have to come back to
I guess Ill take a look upstairs, in the danger zone
I wonder what Im doing here
When I never feel at home
Im a stranger in my own house
Ive got the keys to the door
But Im still locked out
Im a stranger in my own house
Ill huff and Ill puff and Ill blow this house down
Cant be a stranger in my own house
I see the do not disturb sign on my bedroom door
What is this sheet and pillow laying on the floor
I wore out my welcome
I hear you loud and clear
Its time to get a few things straight around here
Ive got no excuse, I should have known
Ive got a place to live but I never feel at home
Im just a stranger in my own house
Ive got the keys to the door
But Im still locked out
Stranger in my own house
Ill huff and Ill puff and Ill blow this house down
Cant be a stranger in my own house
Ive got no excuse, I should have known
With a woman like you Im better off alone
Im a stranger in my own house
Ive got the keys to the door
But Im still locked out
Im just a stranger in my own house
Oh, honey Im home
Im just a stranger in my own house
Im just a stranger in my own house
You got a lion on your hands girl, not a mouse!
Im just a stranger in my own house
Im just a stranger in my own house
Well, somebodys got to go...
Stranger
Stranger

song performed by by ForeignerReport problemRelated quotes
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Shattered windows, Colors of white

Across the street is a new house with a room painted red, with no holes of white.
Next to me, a house purple, with its color pealing off, with holes of black and white
At the end of the street, an old house once yellow, what now remains white.
The sound of a hammer building a house, entering a place with a color unknown.

On the street,
Windows covered with ice
Some shine with light.
Some broken
Some fixed
Some lost, out of sight.

A house, two blocks from here.
Shines with lights of yellow, red, and green everywhere.
A wall keeping the wind from blowing anywhere.
The house next door, at the dawn of the day.
Paints its room black, and peals the color away.

The wall crumbles.
The wind blows across the colors of yellow, red and green
Breaks all the windows.
Turns the yellow to blue, red to black, and green to white.

The house two blocks away.
Adds a line of yellow red and green everyday.
To allow the house of blue, black and white to shine for us some day.

poem by Linda ErikssonBiqueReport problemRelated quotes
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Take This Waltz

Now in vienna theres ten pretty women
Theres a shoulder where death comes to cry
Theres a lobby with nine hundred windows
Theres a tree where the doves go to die
Theres a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the gallery of frost
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws
Oh I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallways where loves never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and death
Dragging its tail in the sea
Theres a concert hall in vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
Theres a bar where the boys have stopped talking
Theyve been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz its been dying for years
Theres an attic where children are playing
Where Ive got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And Ill see what youve chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lilies of snow
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its Ill never forget you, you know!
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz ...
And Ill dance with you in vienna
Ill be wearing a rivers disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And Ill bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And Ill yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And youll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Its yours now. its all that there is.

song performed by by Leonard CohenReport problemRelated quotes
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Building A Big House

you build a big house
with one thought, a wish
that something may last forever
like love, like the finest wood
like a relationship,
or say
(let me say it this way)
a marriage, like strong stairs
inviting attention to society
that no one is leaving
like a door closing behind
a sigh,
but a house with time falls
pillars collide, and floors go
termite eaten to the ground
doors fall out from the hinges
that hold them it their frames,
nothing lasts forever

i know,
i build a house because i know
what love is
i want to give it shelter and warmth
like those rooms
a glow like those living rooms
a nice dinner
like the kitchen and the dining tables.

i do not think beyond my body
that turns to dust
i know
i do not utter beyond my words, i know,
no words can withstand the
lures of the niceties of a lie.
i know

i build the house because we are here
and there is nothing
worth doing

there is no snow and ski is irrelevant.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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The Vain Spell

THE house sleeps dark and the moon wakes white,
The fields are alight with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night?
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew,
O Heart of my heart, I knew by my heart,
That the night of all nights is this,
When elm shall crack and lead shall part,
When moulds shall sunder and shot bolts start
To let you through to my kiss.'


So spake she alone in the lonely house.
She had wrapped her round with the spell,
She called the call, she vowed the vow,
And the heart she had pledged knew well
That this was the night, the only night,
When the moulds might be wrenched apart,
When the living and dead, in the dead of the night,
Might clasp once more, in the grave's despite,
For the price of a living heart.


But out in the grave the corpse lay white
And the grave clothes were wet with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night,
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew
That I dared not leave my grave for an hour
Since the hour of all hours is near,
When you shall come to the hollow bower,
In a cast of the wind, in a waft of the Power,
To the heart that to-night beats here!'


The moon grows pale and the house sleeps still
Ah, God! do the dead forget?
The grave is white and the bed is chill,
But a guest may be coming yet.
But the hour has come and the hour has gone
That never will come again;
Love's only chance is over and done,
And the quick and the dead are twain, not one,
And the price has been paid in vain.

poem by Edith NesbitReport problemRelated quotes
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The Abandoned House And The Man Who Drags His Shoes To Make The Necessary Sound

when you arrive in the house
(the house that both of you built 17 years ago)
no one is there
not even the three white dogs

you have accepted this face of loneliness
without a mouth

it is its nature now
gentle in silence

there is nothing to talk about with someone else
when someone else is far away and seemingly taking all the hearts out

the door and the hinges have to keep things for themselves
for in truth, those who left the stairs
they still love

you have the key to the door of the kitchen
and that is where you start the journey towards the living room

you scurry on some little memories
it is like putting some words in your notes
in here and there beyond the margins

but it is not that endless really
for whatever it be
joy or death there's got to be an end
that is the truth of the meaning of
this word

it could be a dead-end
a street of walls
& then actually you are caught
in flagrante
where your only choice
is to go back,
retrace,
remember,
refresh
refrains, refrains
of a
love song

you go back to the room look longingly at the bed
the blankets are dusty and the pillows are stained with so much emptiness
or guilt
scruples
Freudian analysis
Carl Jung's other possibilities
of reconciliation

this is a very soundless world and
every part here is keeping its mouth shut
their layers of concealment are thick
and their canopies of
self-defenses are hard

you feel like this is one kind of a giant shell
and you are inside it
its flesh
all blistering
flesh

you decide to wear your shoes all throughout this scrutiny
this journey into marriage
into childlessness
into what if's

you drag your feet with your shoes on
as though someone is suffering and wanting to die
and you hold the collar
and you hurt the backbone
and in that open window
you imagine that someone may finally
jump like a scared cat

nine lives
thirty-six softest feet

you purposely make a sound with your shoes
tapping and tapping
and tapping
to create those sounds
of the past dances
just to fill an empty room

some thoughts jump out of the window
dressed in euphemisms
as the ceiling creates its own crankiness
its cloudiness

nine cats in you jump out that window
falling softly on the grass below
all thirty-six
dreams

it is nice to see of course
nine unharmed cats like fluffy cotton blown by the wind and gently
softly land on the grass

it is no wonder
why men sometimes invoke the sound of their whistling

indeed it is by this time
very relaxing

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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At A Certain Point (for The Wife Who Drove Her Husband Away)

at a certain point
you give up on him
and you convince
yourself that regret
is not your friend
neither your enemy

you finally utter the
curse
that

'may he
crawl on earth
forever like a
snake'

' may his
bad luck embrace
him till the end'

i look around
the living room of
your house and there
just below the ceiling
i still see his picture
beside yours

i guess you are compelled
to saying a different thing
because you still love him
despite.

you tell him never to step
on the backyard of the house
ever,
but your heart says another.

you want him back to your arms.
he leaves without any trace.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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Wrapping Paper

By jack bruce and pete brown
Wrapping paper in the gutter
Moving slowly as the wind on the sea,
(faces calling, waves moving)
In your picture on a wall of a house of old times.
(can you hear me) can you hear me
(can you hear me) wandering sadly?
In the city, feeling pretty,
Down and out and making love to you on the shore,
(ruined buildings, faces empty)
In the picture as i gaze ahead and don't see
(that they're calling) that they're calling.
(that they're calling) wandering sadly.
Shattered windows, stairs to nowhere.
(hear you calling) hear you calling
(hear you calling) as i wander so sadly.
Wish i knew what you'd done to me;
Turned me on to things i never knew.
It's all broken, weeds are growing.
Wish i was going home to the house by the shore
(where you loved me) where you loved me,
(where you loved me) loved me so sadly.
Someday i'll get back, somehow i'll do it.
I'll arrive there and you'll be there to meet me.
(walk together, tread the weeds down)
Kiss again in the picture on the wall
(where i loved you) in the old house.
(where i loved you) loved you so well.

song performed by by CreamReport problemRelated quotes
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The Heart Has A Longing Of Its Own Apart From The Beautiful

who can dictate
what the heart can love?
no one

on that day of
sorrow
the beautiful princess
gives up
her royal right
to a shepherd
that she loved

travels a desert and
a forest
crosses six rivers
sleeps over grass
for three nights
just t to be with him

and she enters his
thatched-roof house
surrounded with chickens
and goats
and asks him to make
love with her tonight

she undresses herself
her white body
scented by fresh roses
and precious perfume
lighted
by the moon

but all that the shepherd did
was to look at the stars
and then
sleep

the night is cold
with its eerie silence
and the princess
kills herself

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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Early Morning Poetry

a gray cat so gentle
sleeping beside my easy chair

soft wind enters the window
from the far mountain

the white silky curtains
by the window
sway to the direction of the wind

a red rose blooms on the side
of the limestone wall

horse grazing on the grassy plain
a white dog runs toward a wooden gate

a car stops on the yard near the veranda of this old house
a brother from far announces his arrival

hot coffee and pancakes on the table
fumes of white rice and smoke from the grilled fish

faint classical Mozart music plays on the cassette
light from the sun penetrating the screen of the dining window

a black and white family picture on top of the family piano
grandpa on his military uniform as mother carries father on her arms

memories flood the room and words keep creeping like worms
i want to say that there are no termites on this house but that would be a lie.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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