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a soft wooden clatter, wind-battered reeds/bound to the banks of ditches rank,/ill-purposed waters slide into low swamps/whose waters into rivers seep and crawl.
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1031 5 5
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We were always going to be here. This isn't thebig reveal. It's not even the best last joke. That's to come. Like the apocalypse that it always wants tobe, like playing with the big planet gods. Nothing says we're all doomed like another cold beer. Wave the…
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1820 5 4
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I would be reduced to begging on the streets and hoping for a sign of her in soup lines.
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1383 5 2
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“You done done sumpin’,” the old man guessed, “Sumpin’ bad...”
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1177 5 4
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He stopped believing in God when he learned how balls worked. Spermatocytes turned into spermatids and spermatids turned into spermatozoa, the transition taking place in tiny loop de loops called the seminiferous tubules which contain at least three…
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617 5 1
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Prologue Late at night, an old man named Drevin Philpott stands on the deck of a cruise ship, looking out at the sea. The man is hunched and very small. His arms and legs are thin and he's got a bowling ball for a gut. He's standing on a chair so he can…
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It was midnight. I was outside the cottage, digging another row of star-shaped holes for the shrubbery.
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734 5 0
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Oh, by the way
here’s my old phone number
548-7899
Remember?
Call me
It will ring
somewhere
in the past
We can make
amends
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115 5 2
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When you sit long enoughthe low-lying scrubbegin to swaynot with the windbut of their own volition.It takes timefor them to trust youWhen you sit long enoughthe tree top brancheswelcome waves of fogand gently pushthe mist inland.It takes timefor the cloud-tide to rise.When…
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1527 5 3
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Her time was spent in its usual way, breakfast, pills, organizing and cleaning. It was just hours behind today; hence the late swim. She was proud she did it, that she went outside. She swam, moved herself in the pool, chilly as it was. The pump made a wa
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Some nights I want to take my father’s glock / and build my skull a sunroof.
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916 5 4
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Each brief life is lived in dedication//
to the honeyed buzz of the colony,
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1472 5 3
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My sweet baby angel has baby hair Baby angel has a golden cross lit looking at the crystal pig and kind mare The drowning unicorn comes from the waves in fits. My sweet baby angel has baby talkBaby angel has a diamond shape scarburied heart shaped…
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719 5 4
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At least the cephalopods on their planet manage to comport themselves with some dignity, as well as demonstrating some actual intellectual acumen.
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1496 5 3
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and that you once had / still sometimes sold savory pies out the side of a truck at renaissance fairs alongside your mum with her fake braid in a wrong color wrapped round her head.
& you called the sky 'corrugated' or 'promising as a line of chorus g
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1323 5 4
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John held up his pistol and racked the slide to chamber a round. He told me that he knew a few things. He knew I'd knocked up Nikki. His girl. He knew I'd taken Nikki to the free clinic in Gresham. He knew I wasn't…
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1245 5 3
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She told me in all my past lives I’ve always been a woman, and I was stuck in this relationship and you weren’t coming back, so I should just move on and get over it. I was a little sad, but yeah, I knew I was going to go back to her one more time, just
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2336 5 3
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I’ll tell you what I think, I think
Their hopes of a brush with love
Is what keeps the simple cricket
Awake all night
If you find a baby cricket on its back
Fallen on the sidewalk
Struggling with its legs
In the air
Help it to its fee
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1994 5 1
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'That November I washed
my hair with rabbit's blood -"
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1459 5 0
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He picked up the bottle of gin, looked at it.
"Not a lot left," he said.
"There's enough," she replied. She took the bottle and lifted it to her lips. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"For what?"
"You'll see."
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1875 5 3
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Show me where to go, he said out of defiance for the moment in which time was malleable and fat minutes were consumed by wayward, languid hours. And all I could do for the time being was sit there excruciatingly anxious for this to pass, so it…
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1088 5 4
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Left by a melting snowbank: Cup lids, pine needles, a cairn of dog shit, And the grey soggy shape Of an eyeless winter bird. His breast is an old accordion Gone to rot in an old…
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999 5 3
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His wife leans her head against a beam with her eyes closed
while he reads out loud.
Her mouth shut tightly, almost twisted shut. She's so weary.
She raises her collar and sinks further into her neck.
When he shouts, or explodes — nothing. Not
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680 5 5
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into another bright vat of boiling over hot lies. It's sick, man, the way you'd rather dig for a supposed (royal) buried treasure than make a new beautiful thing start to happen, breakyour back, break your spirit, over and over, until there's nothing left to…
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715 5 5
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Mrs. Death was walking in mountains where everything around was still. Mr. Death? —in another hemisphere, wandering (last she’d heard) through a vast forest.
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573 5 4
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Ever since he left, I have been alone with the tree. We had planted it together. A green twig in the middle of the garden and a knotty stick, running around. Fingers and branches have grown. Very fast. Too fast. When he left, I sat in the shade. There I started writing, and…
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1173 5 1
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Bardan O'Connor stared at himself in the mirror but didn't recognize the image before him. He was pale and looked like death. He tried to psyche himself up for the latest show with a shot of Irish whiskey. He slapped himself hard in the face. "Get it together man." The…
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1402 5 1
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1232 5 1
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you'd do him more of a favor to kill him, than place upon him the burden of such an abrupt change in travel plans.
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1399 5 5
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awoke in confusion, fear and hurt never seen before that day a year past
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