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City of Masks

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"There is something in the air. It makes people sick, makes them want to die. They cannot inhale too deeply for fear that it will turn them mad."

Three Network News Ledes on the Death of Jimmy Buffet

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“He spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze, and now Jimmy Buffet is dead.” —Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News “Jimmy Buffet—beloved parrot-head singer-songwriter—has given up his search for that lost shaker of salt. He…

A Chaos Theory

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—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

The Haunting

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the ugliness will not be denied

The Celebrated Jumping Flippit of Tau-Ceti IV

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One day me an' Elvis was down at the riverbank with Huckleberry, chasin' darters an' watchin' barges go by. It was a lazy day bein' a Sunday an' all. We had jest got back from Church an' Mami told me to change my clothes so's that I didn't get my Sunday

Men Are Beasts

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They both have an annoying habit. She talks to him while she's in another room, and he doesn't answer because he can't hear what she's saying.

Jambalaya

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Your writing offended the editors greatly, and we would select certain word choices we disliked, but we truly hated every word, including mere articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.

Considering the Mailman

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It’s not just the mailman. It’s the logo on the mailbox down the street. It’s the uniform. It’s any man or woman in the whole unsettling profession.

The Birth of Girma Dali

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Amid the swerve and pulse of hungry bodies Girma Dali picks his spot, a tissue-wide patch of net where's he going to strike. A green-jerseyed defender closes in on him his brute momentum unleashed like a kamikaze pilot swooping into enemy orbit, his lunging body makes…

Bon Bons

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love notes yellowed through the years

The Same

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The bus is late; the papers disappear. The china breaks, and the suit does not fit.

Clicking

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Reining her small hands around the molded handle grips, her bottom bouncing athwart and wildly off the seat, Symphony wrenches her center of gravity inward, commandeering as much control from the road it would allow. With her breaks behaving as stubborn

Watering

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“Sometimes when I feel the urge to create, I don’t know whether to grab my paints, my camera, my guitar or my pen.” “You could have sex,” her friend, sitting in the desk next to hers, joked.

love poem for the homeless man who was killed on wednesday night

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it was your hands—caked with years-old clay & quaking from too much solitude

My Morning Song is Better than Yours

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And I just want to say that my morning song is better than yours. I want you to hear it buzzing in me like an old radiator. I want you to do what you’ve done before. To press your ear against the skin and listen for the static.

Jorge Curioso Flies a Plane

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This is Jorge. He was a good little monkey. And always curious.Like the time he and his friend, the man in the amarillo sombrero, had to fly to Japan. *Jorge sat by the window. Watched the ground get further away. Until they were above the clouds. He looked out…

I've Got a Secret

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There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.

Interstate

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By Jackson, you called and said, I'll be too drunk to drive. Hell, if I do my very best, I could be blind by Shreveport.

The Madness of the Gods

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“Have you heard about Lucius?” The lawyer turned to the carpenter. “They say he's gone mad. Just gone; the madness of the gods.” Sitting in the barbershop were the former two, one in his forties and the other of his fifties; a gray-haired…

Molasses

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My T-shirt read BOO HOO.

Undressing The Moon

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the white moon is dangling by a thread tonight you close your eyes and listen to it undress and suppress, suppress you listen to it undress while you yourself hang lifeless in your own arms not meaning to do yourself any harm, not

To All the Lights

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I have nothing in me but a raw loneliness right now. It's as if someone whirl-winded me out of the sky into the middle of the ocean in the middle of the red faced night. My fate seems immobile, sealed, doomed to a rocking nothingness, like…

Borges in the SUB

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"There's Borges."

Graeme King and the Creature

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Graeme King was disturbed. He sat at his desk feeling his bloodshot eyes rolling backwards, impatient, leaden in their sockets. Could he believe what he had just seen? Surely not. Surely the late nights spent absorbing the relentless pulse of his computer screen…

Hermano Sandwich

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His mouth smiled but his icy eyes did not. "You like it?," he asked with a thin deflated voice. "Old family recipe. Enjoy."

All of Me

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They sat before the fire and played cribbage. He was a good player, but not as good as she was.

Rough Draft

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fated and cruel, a person I don't love

That Which Does Not Kill You (Only Postpones The Inevitable)

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Harold Smithe awoke that Tuesday morning precisely at 6 am. He did this every day for as long as he could remember. Even on the weekends when his schedule varied. Well, varied slightly. He lay in bed trying to wake up and mulled over the things he needed to accomplish for…

Pirate

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Control and decorum. Manners. Practice such to protect yourself and others.

Working Girl

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Suddenly a hand shot up on the other side of a hedge. “I’ll have one of those!” cried someone who remained invisible.