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lunch

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strange daysi'm having lunch with the babyand we're talking about people-watchingand old souls and coffee and twizzlersit's a weird conversation but she's my babyso something about some apple not falling far from the treewould best fit in herebut anywayi feel like i'm…

The End of History

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Well, I walked in on you, then you walked out on me And that was when it happened – the end of history And that should have been sufficient But I think you know it wasn’t I remember it was you who told me Dreams are only efficient when illusio

SWING-SET

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Soon, out of the womb ‘down there' is nuance. It guides you, like a legality, like your own breathing, in and out of overtone, hardcore hodgepodges, those inklings near sacrosanct beyond breakfront negligees and neo-negligence leading the good life. Isn't it…

A Night In a String Of Long Nights

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Whatever innocence Michelle had brought to the game was long gone, even the part where she dreamed she was the star of a righteous, asskicking movie.

The Night She Took Her Dignity Back

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She had endured three years of abuse for those hot, fleeting moments of tenderness—just enough warmth to keep her second-guessing the bitter frost. Now the ring promised a lifetime of biting back her pain.

Following Questions

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4. If the property line is a symbol, what about the neighbor girl's window, the flickering candle in her room, her black cotton panties?

A Bitter And Unseasoned Business Attorney Makes His Case That "Crazy Heart" Is The Perfectly Nasty Ending

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In closing, Your Honor:After the interview Bad Blake, a/k/a "Otis" takes "Miss" Jane Craddock back to his hotel, ties her up, and gives her a Cleveland Steamer. For reference, please refer to my Brief, Exhibit A, showing a thespian named Ronald Jeremy…

Trust

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I wonder if it was my voice or the words I was almost but not quite saying, cautious words, the kind that wander deep inside one's mind ...

Santa Breaks Bad

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It was bound to happen. Even celebrities can only take so much. The constant comparisons to Christ (people still think He was born in December), assumptions that he was anti-Semite or anti-Islam, and accusations from PETA, now ad litem for…

Grandma (My Mother) At Christmas

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A tanka/haiku poem about grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

My Father Said, "I Miss the Game."

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Of course he misses it,

Joseph

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There is a dead factory. It sits on the tip of a small piece of land which extends into a forgotten lake, like a giant dirty-inked thumb pressed against a faded blue sheet of paper.

Tonight's Special

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I didn't arrive at the Wicked Spoon every night in the same mood. Some nights I would arrive under the spell of a generous emptiness, what I like to call the euphoria of futility. Not exactly a state of bliss, but a dazed detachment in which everything is so pointlessly…

Exile

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Dandelions wither as I approach and the grass dies under my feet.

Dear Lieutenant General Fred

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But I am delighted to inform you that through our computer added softwareness, YOU have to been chosen as our Nigerian contact for the transfer of fundage used to research global warming. How ‘bout them apples?

Captains of Industry

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Renee said, "I have actually slept with a number of Captains of Industry and would rate them, overall, deficient in skills."

I Hate Your Favorite Band

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He (after learning of my former occupation as a record store owner): So, what is your favorite band of all time?

Swimming Lessons

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He came up from under the water and looked at us. I asked, Whatcha doin' here? Then he said he was going for a swim because the water was warm. Mickey and I looked at each other. He is going for a swim because the water is warm, I told Mickey. Then his…

The Oscillating Escalator (Excerpt), 2011

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We can imagine an escalator as being a (conveyor) belt between two different states of consciousness. On the one hand (beginning or end, depending on how you see it) the lower (or higher) level, and on the other hand a progression or pro-‘motion’ of the f

Dust to Dust

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He began to chop the powdery substance and separate it into segments.

The Lioness For Real

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you happen to me like motorcycle tricks

Someday

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He called himself Theodore Birdwhistle.

Mothers

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There's a surprise for you!Why did she think I would have been pregnant? I hadn't seen her for ages, neither people she knew, so it wasn't my weight ...She opened the door, a sigh of relief on her face, thank God she thought ... She isn't.The surprise was we came to visit,…

Paul Shaffer's Gold

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Paul Shaffer and his cloned henchman Mini Paul come rattling through the early morning sky in a modified World War I biplane.

Good Old Days

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That night, when Nostalgia knocked on my door just before dawn, I had just enough time to catch her coat as she slipped it off and staggered into my apartment.

Story of the Once Magnificent Big Ole, Shaggy Tree's Awful Demise

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The world is beginning to lose what little hair it has left. Follicles litter the streets and scrape along merrily in the wind like one last turn of the world defying knob of being and knowing. But the thing I want to say here is how beautiful…

Rough Draft

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fated and cruel, a person I don't love

vast dance of the darling soul

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Was it only for the vast dance of the darling soul, that you were born? Not to give up your genetics? Made for the use of the future, were you? I should have known. I heard the wind that swirled within you, even then, when we were so young. You were

Touchstone: Excerpt 5.

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Naked, laughing hard, laughing full into the moonlit void, she stepped out from the stone

A Broken Frame

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The photograph has no date,but these are my long-ago kin,ancestors just before the boat,six stone-faced on the English shore,sepia on cardstock under glassstill clear in severe, dark clothesexcept one who has been markedout, maybe with black wax,which runs to the bottom…