1981 9 4
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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.
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1981 18 13
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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.
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1981 4 2
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Flush, a sputter, and the water level rises, slowly. Flush again.
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1980 2 0
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“Nothing we have here can stop them,” the Lumi said, “We were hoping there might be something in your world we might try.”
“Even if we had something, how would I get it to you?
”We are working on that, in the meantime, will you help us?”
I
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1980 3 3
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She stared unbreakingly, confident, knowing; and talked so close to my face I felt cornered. But her voice was something, low and smooth.
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1980 4 2
|
He stands straighter and walks toward the phone in the back, near the bathrooms. His wet sock slaps loudly against the tile floor. The buzz of conversation dims to whispers, barely audible above the roar of the espresso machine.
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1980 38 17
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His face was cold and hard as marble. Rudy’s angular features shuddered and twitched in the darkness.
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1980 19 13
|
memories that no longer make sense
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1980 0 0
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There’s an old journalism adage, usually uttered by editors who haven’t had their butts out of a comfy leather newsroom chair in years, which goes: “You know… the news just doesn’t walk in the door.” ... But sometimes, it does.
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1979 0 0
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Where was it? Tino wondered, craning his neck, plastic bag in hand. He would have sworn there was a Barnes & Noble along this stretch. Had it closed since his mother had last been in the hospital two years ago?
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1979 15 9
|
The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.
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1979 23 19
|
Alice writes three different versions of the letter. The last one is the most tempered, the most like her, but still it is such an unlike-her thing to do. The couple who lives above her has been disrupting her sleep nearly every night for the past three weeks. The woman's…
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1979 26 18
|
Watching water fall in the longest waterfall/
becomes immediately tedious
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1978 12 9
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Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.
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1978 6 3
|
circa the early 90s, Buzz Aldrin and my father had been invited to a dinner at someone's house on Bainbridge Island and gotten lost.
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1978 2 1
|
Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.
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1977 2 1
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A recent book reveals that nature documentaries are staged. Shocked by such claims we went on location to discover for ourselves the behind-the-scenes manipulations and more. Director: “You'll spot the wildebeest, freeze, and then charge. Okay? And try to bring…
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1977 20 13
|
You died from a bad heart.
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1977 8 3
|
“Would you consider renewing for the next season?”
“We’re not interested.”
“Can I ask you why?”
I considered my reply. I was thinking of mincing my words. The man on the other end of the line seemed, how should I put this, somewhat s
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1977 19 11
|
I describe mine as uterine-based hysteria or Sex Test.
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1977 3 1
|
Newsome glared at the sleeping woman, slumped over the edge of the hard, metal table, her head settled comfortably into the crook of her arm. Over an hour she's been in that position, he thought. Despite the harshness of the room, the fluorescent lights,…
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1977 0 1
|
I wonder how much time she has left. I think she’s seventeen. I don’t know for sure because she was already grown when I got her from the pound, just before Christmas, years ago this was --back when I had hair and hope.
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1977 10 7
|
Sometimes after bookbinding for a few hours at the hand-sewing table, Jillie would, after scraping her knife too roughly over the glue of an old book's spine, feel not like a resurrector of literature, as she should, but a killer. Not a calculating or
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1977 3 3
|
Portions of my heart and bones
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1977 4 2
|
We've worked silence over /
Like pros, our best work together.
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1977 3 2
|
You call the shit in this paper news? ‘Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform, The Truth About Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter.' Seriously? Enough about Elvis already.
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1976 1 0
|
There was a man crying, walking his dog
and a woman drove by
on a flat tire
They brought coffee to the tables
in large glasses on white saucers
There’d be long silver spoons
with which to stir in strong
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1976 3 0
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The first photo above shows plainly: five children dressed in suits and dresses. There are three girls. Each girl wears a yellow sundress with chiffon ribbons. The boys have been terrorizing them--the girls, not the dresses.
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1976 17 5
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I try to help my pet-mouse by dangling cheese from a piece of string in front of him. Or by making meow sounds. Sometimes, my pet-mouse wins, sometimes the hamster with the great body.
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1976 7 3
|
Recently I think I became someone else.
When the alarm clock rings in the morning, it sounds sharper than usual; getting up, my feet don't seem to quite touch the floor; looking into my bathroom mirror, my face seems to be melting, sliding, my eyes dri
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