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'The Good Life' Not by Bud Smith

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I'm trying to read a Poetry in Motion poem on there wall of a crowded electric train

The Sky is Simply White

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The rain is no terrible epitaph

Truth at a Bonsai Booth

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I envisioned bound feet of ancient Asian women who wore embroidered slippers that hid grotesque disfigurements.

Milton wrote his best lines blind

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the unhealthiness of obsession and control until the lines burn bright

More Abandoned Sentences

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By morning it was over. I crawled farther out onto the ledge. The three year old was screaming like Donald Duck. Trains ran into the night. Several pigs entered the open window.

Ezra Stoller

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captured by his lens and plates/ before humidity and hydrocarbons/ smudge the crisp clean lines

At This Particular Moment

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in time there is nothing more important for meto write than this line. It isn't defined in the way you'd like perhaps, but it doesn't matter because it will be true, and you will be true, and I will be the message you get. Some signal has…

The Leg

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They all looked for Vic's leg after the accident.

SantaBot, Can You Hear Me?

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Mimi: Santa, I am so down with taking a number, but I really can't have you reading that particular story. Santa: Let me be the judge of that. I am Santa. I give presents to kids.

Freeway Deaths Attributed to Talk Radio

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"I was just coming home from work listening to Consumer Dave," said Murrietta resident Mick Baylor, through his attorney, "when my eyelids started getting droopy. And he was just talking about how Circuit City was going out of business and I was. . .well,

Daniel in a Den of Liberalism

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He had forgotten what the culture was like in certain parts of the city. At the lower end of Second Avenue, there lived an amalgam rare anywhere in the world, save other pockets of Manhattan. Punks, hippies, gays, the homeless, and artists of all strip

A Body Divided, 5

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Physical therapy was on the agenda every morning, first thing. A nurse would come to my room from the basement floor where they did physical therapy. She'd wrap me in a blanket and put me into a wheelchair, even though it was obvious I didn't need one to

The Greatest Narcissist on Earth

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I forgot how masterful you are, way better than a pickpocket. After our meeting, I drove home with one hand. It felt funny but I figured I'd absentmindedly put the other in my purse or tossed it into the backseat with my jacket. In my…

Paper Horse

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The trouble with paper horses was not how flimsy they were when you were flying them, reigns in hand, high enough above the treetops that falling would mean more than a bruised knee.

The Lost Boys

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Every day hurts, just a little, but not enough

Stay. Sit. Listen.

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There is a small church in the south of Italy, with a stained-glass window depicting the sister of John The Baptist.

Major Chaos

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Major Chaos came here one of those hot days. I was washing the floor, wearing old clothes, when he knocked on my door. Since I don’t have many visits, I let him in. At first, he seemed like a soldier, but upon reflection I realized he was a big green fr

The Waves

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...some years later I heard that an old friend jumped off that bridge to her death.

Torn

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My parents were married for forty five years. “A lifetime,” is how the rabbi at my mother's funeral describes it. The man says it with such a tone of familiarity, of genuine sadness, that one might think he has known and adored my parents all their lives. But…

Brink of Extinction_Chapter Two

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The year is 2110. The earth is no longer habitual for human beings. The oceans are gone, the sky is red and irradiated and the last vestiges of human civilian are located within the confines of massive barrier cities. For a century mankind has been at war

April Haiku

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A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

Eighty-eight

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She realised that things you can't prove can be more intimate than the things you know to be true.

Class

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Class (appears in my book Breaking it Down; no journal publication) When your neighbor James Frehley cusses you out for hanging a block and tackle from the silver maple in your front lawn, begin to pull the engine from your Galaxie anyway, smile and nod…

Second verse, same as the first

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Most people assume I’m gay, and have assumed I’m gay since I was in fifth grade. Maybe sooner. Maybe fifth grade is just my first memory of recognizing what other people believed true about me. But coming out as a gay man in 1987, when I was in fifth gra

Zen and the Art of Enjoying the Last Laugh

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What doesn't kill you gives you great material.

Capture This Thing

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Take it from inside you and draw it out. Do it before it decides you are not what you seem to be and, as a result, holds you up by the thumbs.

The Party

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Mike poured vermouth over his Campari and ice. “Gotta say, you have the most amazing view up here.” “Thanks. It's great when I'm washing dishes.” “Yeah, and the view in your front room isn't bad either. This cocktail …

Wings

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Every lunch time the numerous small jukeboxes that are distributed about the dining area fill the air with webs of King Curtis and Benny Goodman.

WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKER

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WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKERWhen his fingers sped along the keys, I'd need to sit. I'd such weak knees. I thought him charming, tall, and able, then he overturned the table. Chili, crackers, cheddar cheese crashed on me-he'd been displeased. I…

Fatuous Dialogue #1

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—Was it true, what you wrote in that poem? —Pretty true. —What do you mean “pretty true”? Was it true or wasn’t it? —It was as close as you get to truth in poems.