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Annals of the Naked Rowdies #78

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A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.

Wednesday late, Friday early

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I wrote this during a poetry workshop at the Atlantic Center for the Arts with Carolyn Forché. January, 2015. So much more has happened since that stunning week.

Emotional Gentrification - excerpt Single Stroke Seven

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Sunday, Nolan and I drop by the ice rink on 10th and Alma to watch the amateur hockey leagues battle it out in an unspoken yet assumed class war: the buff, unemployed rink bums who can grind ice, cross-check, and stick handle like the pros, versus the dou

The Edge of Night

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The night wrapped its arms around us as we drove west, taking the highway past Medford towards Philly. The kids were asleep in the backseat and we were both counting the mile markers, staring out the windows with quiet eyes. I listened to the drone of the…

Crackle

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As he brushes his shoulders against other people's shoulders until he almost has no shoulders –

Occasional sunshine

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‘Didn't you used to have a daughter?' The tense and phraseology jarred, but he was inarticulate not ignorant, awkward rather than unaware of how it sounded and she smiled at him.

Vivian

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When her husband left she was not yet thirty

Bukowski and the Greyhound Bus

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It’s a grey and stormy day naturally We’re crowded into a tiny bus shelter as it pours 57 varieties of cats and hounds They keep hitting the pavement around us with the splatting sounds those animals make when falling out of the heavens

The Nanny

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     In the dark, alone after she was gone, he would whisper her name into his pillow and fight the tears more out of shear exhaustion than anything else. He had mourned for her even before she had passed, as he watched helpless while the disease marched slowly and…

Eve

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When God blessed creation, a ewe gave birth to Adam. When he cursed Satan, Eve hatched from a crocodile's egg.——In naming the animals, Adam marked them for death. His own name was a slow fire. Eve's was an inferno.——In the shelter of the Tree of…

Tomatoes and Onions on the Bed

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That led to the first aid box on the bed at 3 in the morning, but what about those veggies?

To Know but not Really

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So strange this feelingTo meet someone I've haven't really metTo know someone I don't actually knowTo desire to learn more but sure I never willTo feel connected not knowing what I'm connected toTo read words, thoughts, feel moved by them, but never hear a voice

At the Jennifer Aniston Intensive Haircare Clinic

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Hunger only makes people hungry, but bad hair can ruin your whole day.

Pour Yourself A Glass of Wine, Hop on the Treadmill and Read This Book

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I don't know if I'm going to get Alzheimer's, but know I don‘t want to. That's why I just read “100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's“ by medical journalist Jean Carper. Doing simple things is something I'm good at. And while I'm…

Jim Shows Me Twelve Jesuses

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in cinematic snippets, ten-second scenes of twelve Sons …

The Little Things (three versions)

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It's the little things that trip us up: a small hole in a level field, an innocuous root in a well-trod path, a disinclined sidewalk...

Trophy

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I remember ...all the teenagers offered no-longer favored CDs, last year's cell phones, third-place trophies, team jerseys, played-out videogame cartridges, and candy-colored miniature stuffed animals...

Why the World's Fireflies Are Being Counted

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We got Bob Dylan on the wall wriggling from the lack of music and light among the spheres A great doubt has been raised and can be seen from far, far away for they are even afraid now in heaven that things can’t be going right and to

Love Meal #3009

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His knife enters the Maui onion. He minces garlic and applies heat to pan and melts sweet cream butter and browns the garlic first and then he adds the onion and more heat, but it's time that will surely caramelize them. Salt and pepper and splashes of wine for the pan and…

Seven Things I Learned About David Letterman from Jason Zinoman's "Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night."

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Never touch David Letterman's neck!

Good & Plenty

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From across the crowded bar, past the be-suited lobbyists and in between the plates of fried calamari and glasses of cabernet being hustled to and fro by the Salvadoran waiters, Travis could see that John had changed. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. A little grey…

Piggy Bank

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He shivered in his robe and pajama pants as the showdown with the piggy bank continued on this dark winter’s night. He couldn’t resist the cute dots for eyes, the stubby legs and perked up ears.

Sealing off the Exits

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Jasmine invited herself over and plopped herself on my futon. "Let's fuck," she said, bluntly. "I want to."

The Bird

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We lived on the edge of a tiny Iowa town, and picked corn fields were steps away.

the snake charmer

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God forbid you should break one of the camps precious “rules,” which were more or less like the Ten F'ing Commandments around there.

Noodles

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It's Granny hauling her crooked soul into heaven. Guess who I stole that image from?

Hexagon

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an ominous figure of fear and grace a ball moves back and forth

Constable Pulce and the Sunny Dystopia

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Alessandro was no ordinary demon (what demon is?), insofar as he had Constable Pulce's number. In demonly fashion he had Pulce's number in a way Pulce himself did not.

Cathy

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"Merry Christmas, Willie."

Running

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On the way home, “Friendly honk,” he said.