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Let’s Make a Landscape

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Viewed correctly, nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of clichés. A successful landscape is their pleasing rearrangement.

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.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 11

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When we were on the road coming back out to California, along the Lewis and Clark trail somewhere near Cardwell, Montana, I remember thinking life was like leaping through flames while reading poetry and drinking rotgut red wine. This was what life was, a

Lule of Raw - 3

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"I'll tell you one thing I don't want to see, armed confrontation, leading to domestic warfare."

Debtor's Prison

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You should have marked that territory like a conquistador, mounted him like an equestrian, left no what-ifs in your wake.

Lines with Billie Holiday

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It is almost as if there isn’t a wedge of wood between us – I can feel him inches away from me. I can’t control the sigh or the tears that escape my body.

Halfway Out The Door

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She asks if I only write about men, which I tell her is redundant. I also answer, “Yes, but sometimes I write about them as race cars, hyenas, vaginas, or God.” She smirks like she wants to smile, but it’s stuck halfway out her door. Her happiness has

Arasoi Chuugi

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"We regret the inconvenience. Due to hijack activity, we have orders to secure this flight. Please remain seated. We will be landing shortly. Thank you for your cooperation."

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 3

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That put a real crimp in our already crimped sex life. Actually I didn’t mind as much as Allison minded. It made her real grumpy when she didn’t get laid. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain, because she was so small that it was l

Ennui of Wings

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Does flight exhilarate the sparrows

Liquids

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The bar sounds grew (as bar sounds will) until everything rushed together -- clinking glass, tinkling ice, laughter and zippers going down then up.

The Sad History of the Tearless Onion

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Matthias Fenstermacher loved onions, but hated slicing them, and so he labored to produce a tearless variety. His first attempt was indeed tearless--instead of weeping, the slicer was overcome by fits of uncontrollable giggles. The potential hazard was

Collision

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That black hole isn't really a hole.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 8: In Which Love Is Declared

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Astrid hadn't always hated him. They met at the Beta house in the fall of his junior year. Typical Friday night. Stoned, drinking beer. He and Red Chapman sitting in their room playing guitars. The girls in their blues jeans. The guys from the house hi

Maritzer's Axiom

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We were just as bourgeois as Bloomingdale’s, one generation past canned ravioli dinners with cheap white bread.

Lewd in the Library!

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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue just came out, and all over America librarians are flipping through its pages and rolling their eyes. The swimsuit issue, which isn't actually about swimwear at all, but, is, instead, about young, beautifully shaped female…

Dishwater Panacea

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Suds, like gossamer bandages at her wrists, concealed the turbulence below but could not relieve it.

The Death of Childhood Heroes (or "Roadkill")

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We were pushing ninety down the highway through a stretch of what rightfully should have been called the Badlands. We were both absorbed and coping with the rapidly escalating stages of desperation and so neither of us noticed when the yellow figure stepped…

Just leave it and get out.

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The money stank on the table. Money is dirty she said, one of the dirtiest things. So many people touch it. This pile of brine would not explain its reek, only demanded that we accepted its stench as requisite. It had to have been the cash that stank, prior to its arrival…

The Karaoke Girls

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The Karaoke Girls are not appreciated. Not nearly enough and not often enough.

Junctions / Decisions

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Next to you, the mother tightens her grip on her stroller. The young teenager tears her gaze from her mobile phone for an instant.

The Parade Path

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Beautiful, a country left abandoned by the parade path. The soldiers that typically occupy this place, temporarily removed to neighboring lands; congregating together, backs to the native. I benefit from the accidental diversion.

This is Poop Patrol!

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Sherry and I stand on the sidewalk on a sunny morning, watching her dog take a dump. She's new to the neighborhood and we've just introduced ourselves. The dog, a handsome poodle, does the deed efficiently. “See you later, Gloria!“ Sherry says…

The Glass Shop

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She burst Into the glass shop

When Dreams Come Knocking

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“What are you doing after this?” I asked, faking a self confidence I didn’t truly posses at fifteen. I didn’t seem to realize that I wasn’t old enough for any of the clubs they’d go to. I’d heard that fans sometimes followed the band to an after-party.

The Broken Lily

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“What was that about?” Keiko asked as she gingerly separated the lily from the wrapping and the baby's breath and examined the flower. Keiko unbound the lily and noticed that the stem seemed strong. The flower no longer needed the support of the wire, and

Black Orchids

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I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.

Memorial Day

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War came home tonight. We weep and hug, while he stares over our shoulders, like the statue we'll make of him. We pour a drink for his shaky hands, wheel him past his friends the dead, and lie to each other about other, far off places as if we knew.

The Man Who Couldn't Speak His Love

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I considered explaining that the universe is still evolving and changing, but the look on her face said GENESIS ONE.

from Flatlander's Suite

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Under nervously flickering fluorescent lights / your name will grow / fed by the tongues of Those Who Never Leave