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take

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THERE'D been mutterings on the shareholders' board about a dodgy deal shoved through. In the rush after the towers' thing to get out relevant stock an executive producer had signed off on some film school kid for five big ones to shoot a…

Laughingly rejected by The New Yorker

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...and we laughed.

Trees Today

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are my only real friends. They don't seem to mind my shuffling down the dirty sidewalks without acknowledging their mere scraggly presences like friendly tombstones. They are growing their hair out again. I've noticed that much. We've got a…

A Free Rinse

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“Turn the fucking thing off!” I yelled above the noise. “It’s fucking New Year’s morning!”

Your Mystery

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I took it in my hands and used it on my lips. The taste was just hers: her touch, her smell, her breath in the winter nights. She was in this. Everything we had was in this tube.

GOD'S FACE

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I was a Cub Scout, and the face of God was a joke that was told to my little pack. The joke went as thus:

Doors

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Marge came home with a Doors CD.

Artesian Moon

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If you want job security on this planet, you'd better study art.

Liz@Phil

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Liz didn’t steal his heart / she embezzled it

Snake, Rope

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The snake was fang-less and so had to choke her, making the kill bloodless and drawn out, just the way she liked it.

The Bridge

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The Bridge Barstow had not wanted to listen to Griff. Griff was not making the right decisions, or he thought Griff was not making the right decisions. Thought he was walking a…

In the Red

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The younger woman asked Scott if he loved Jesus.

Nightmare

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I loved to visit my grandparents when I was a kid.

The Tale of the Donut and the Éclair

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“I scheduled some time today to talk to you about something…something important. Since you’re going on with your life, leaving everything you’ve known so far, you’re going to need some information about sex.”

Nativity in Tahiti: Paul Gauguin

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The young girl has given up, and lies sprawled out upon the yellow cover on the bed, with her blue sarong wrapped loosely around her body. One arm lay back up above her head, where it was thrown during the exertion of birth. Her yellow halo surr

Police Mistakenly Release Murderer: An Analysis

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He has no plan, he needs a plan, he has no plan, he needs a plan -- the two thoughts bounce around inside his skull like racquet balls.

I Saw the News Today, Oh Boy

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We are infused with fear and dread/ of the world we won’t engage/ except through flat screens and remotes,

Security Notes to the Museum of Winter

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Behind the wainscoting, the mice scratch, struggling to keep warm.

Novembering

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Cinnamon and smoke infuse the days that shorten, chill, accelerate.

Kinesiology

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I tell my doc I’m special, 1 in 1,000,000 special: unhitched, pushing 44, and knocked up. "Call Guinness," I joke, and fake jab his right arm. He puts his two hands over mine, smiles gently, like a father.

Against Romanticism

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And because the film is French, the camera pauses / long moments at the curve of her neck, it watches/ her finger vermilion tulips in a vase. Her new lover,/ a wisp of a man, looks good in leather./ The camera pans quickly across beige suede,/ rests long

28

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The signal sets the faint young boys into motion

Strange Fruit of Unrewarded Labor

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Poets are more like Jesus,/ suffering the cross

Overheard While Buying Tires in Willits

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She breezes through the door, cellphone to ear, with the confidence of the affluent. Can you look at my left rear tire, the dashboard indicator says it's low. Back to her phone, Oh, Marsha, hi, how are you, you gorgeous WOMAN, you!? Hey, I'm on my way to…

Coda in the Form of Three Haiku

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Nature has its way:

Appearances

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Vito stood before the mirror combing his dark, freshly-cut hair. He trimmed his thick mustache, then buttoned his black vest. He liked its tight fit against his muscular torso. He had difficulty fastening the top button of his white shirt, the collar tigh

Sid's Girls

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Sid, the owner of the red convertible, always slept with his twin Lhasa Apsos, Helpless and Hopeless. He was an early riser and took his “girls”, as he called them, out for a brief walk, yes, and also he was up early to take his morning penicillin because he…

Curb Appeal

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He kept the lawn mowed at the perfect height. He mowed it twice a week to one inch. Some weeks he mowed it a third time for good measure.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 17

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So back to Berkeley we went, and started our own commune in a huge rented house on Derby Street where we could tear the fences down in all the neighborhood backyards. We created what we called “The Meadow.”

Hygiene

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I peed on Rick’s toothbrush. I nearly repented and cleansed it with hydrogen peroxide in the middle of the night. But I didn’t.