Alphabetical stories

Atoms of Sleep

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From the compass of the self the unifying leap,gravitate gently, atoms that sleep,to where mystery reclines and solution must rise,but only for a fraction a lifetime implies.No sphere sympathetic to station or throne.All peripatetic. No flesh. No bone.Nothing to…

Atonement Circle

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When Roger opened the closet door, several guns fell forward at his feet. Most of them were rifles, weapons his stepfather had collected over three wars. Wooden bolt-action carbines, with worn leather shoulder straps, of this caliber and of that caliber. Both…

Atrocities

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My table offers up the gutted calf/ with carrots and potatoes yanked / alive and whole

Attachment

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I would like to credit St. Mary's and St. Joseph's for my decision to become a Buddhist nun. The day after I sacrificed my virginity to Johnny Delaney, St. Joseph's star quarterback, he dumped me for Fiona Kelly. That's when I decided to…

Attacking Panic

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I'm panicking trying to think of the next line in this poem

Attempted Innocence

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When they first met at the bar, right away he was sweet on her. He drove an old oil-burning Buick or Olds, going down the road like a smudge pot. He never kept food in his car, where it would get hot and spoiled. He only picked nice fresh

Attempting Integration, Duchamp Descends to the Killing Floor

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Slice the moment into/ free body diagrams/ of elegant simplicity

Attention Deficits

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I was working on my dissertation that summer, and I took a part-time job doing psychological testing in a poor public school system. The town would send me around to different elementary schools to test their most troubled children, or, rather,…

Attention, Stargazers

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And in the end we're crouched over like children / sifting through this tide-pool

Atticus

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His name was Atticus. Yes, exactly like that other Atticus you’re thinking of. Though it was more to do with his mother’s unnatural obsession with Gregory Peck and less to do with a love of classic novels (because Lord knows she scarcely read a thing

Attila the Bun and the Lost Paradigm

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I had a meeting with the editor of a well-known magazine. She said, “I think your paradigm got stuck up your monomyth.” “Oh dear. Is that bad?” “Bad? You want to be a writer, don't you?” “Well, I did. I'm not so sure now.…

Attraction and the Forge of God

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Being burned with a branding iron really hurts. Everyone must have voted for the Forge because next thing I knew there was only God on TV

Attraction In the Night

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Everybody was out on the deck and you could feel the deck swaying a little with the weight of all the people. There was loud music inside but it was too hot and nobody was dancing and they were all out on the deck. Lisa was out there and either she would not…

ATYPICAL TWITTER PSYCHOSIS

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nine seven thousand debut novel words i love you thx for reading by #aksania #xenogrette #MINE #novella #birdking #pixies #ASPARAGUS #SPACETRASHVIOLET #SEX #DOROTHYNOTROBOT

au

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the way we fit...alchemy

Aubade Faucet

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I. he leans his messy head against the walland contemplates his wild mistakeshe discovers a nest of red spidersoutside his rotting basement doorhe watches television in his socksand…

Auden at Swarthmore

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So I went to see the wrinkled and rumpled poet, who insisted on reading from memory, stumbling through his sheaf of poems.

Audience

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At 19 words, the whole piece is a snippet.

Audition

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My piano tutor, a walnut-faced shrew, rapped my knuckles with her small plastic baton to smack them back into the proper tempo, an adagio I’d mastered weeks before. One hour until the audition and damn if this woman didn’t break the skin of two of my fing

Augmented

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It is our gift-- the knowing/ without knowing--/ that allows us transport,

August

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One moustache hair at moustache level on a filmy bathroom mirror. A red velvet spread on a big round bed. Dear Ma: We saw a bearded lady.

August 1976 Jefferson City, MISSOURI

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"We gotta find a way to get high!" "Shh! My parents will hear you Tommy! Their bed is right above us." …

August and After Haiku

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The brown grackle chirps/ as she chomps a plump cricket-/ melodious meal.

August, now and after

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I'll see her this fall, a redhead in camo

Augustine

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You stretch my heart / in sacred ways

Augustinian Prayer Sonnet

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He kissed her tits and thought of art

Aunt and Uncle

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I pulled at her shirt like a slot machine.

Aurora

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Soon everyone will know what is coming.You cast a spell of heaviness and I crumple, horizontal. Like Aurora, sleep is my destiny.Tantalus in reverse, my curse from food forever I will flee, while everything changes;discomfort and…

Aurora Borealis

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I recalled the one night stand I'd had with the girl one balmy summer night in Minneapolis. We lay on my bed in the moonlight, and I touched the nipples of her tiny breasts with the thumb and pinkie of one hand.

Austin, 22

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A thrill seeker before midnight - but closer to twilight ...