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Jim Shows Me Twelve Jesuses

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

Mermaid

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While the other kids blew bubbles, Maddy clung to my neck. She didn't cry or scream, and she held on loosely, not with the death grip some kids have. For five Wednesday afternoons, Maddy wrapped her pudgy arms over my shoulders and rested her bottom on m

Getting Sideways On Douglas

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Under the dirty orange glow of sodium streetlights, the glistening pavement looks slick, but it’s only just wet. The mid-November temperature is cool—quite mild, actually, for this late time of year—still hovering in the upper 30s—so far posing only the

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 7

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Warren Jeffries had called me on the phone the night before and said, “Listen to this,” as he held the receiver out his bedroom window at the noise coming from the riot on campus. They were spraying gas over People’s Park, trying to get them to disp

Brown Paper

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“Americans like beer, right?” he asks. “It’s not acceptable for a woman to buy beer.” He proffers it in a brown paper bag.

The One Day Internship

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Poppy de Witte was content to spend her summers in Cape Cod, where her family owned a small beach house considerably less stifling than their spacious apartment on Park Avenue.

Heat

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It was so hot we walked out on our husbands. There were reasons, we supposed. They left the refrigerator doors open all day, grabbing beers when they passed by, tossing the sticky caps upon counters. They drove their Metropolitans to buy food, leaving th

Self Portrait with Google

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Try it with and without/ middle name or middle initial.// Try different keywords.

The Plunderer

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Bill (Gunnery Captain of the Left Hand Gun, HMM Plunderer), while not exactly obese, nor could a disinterested observer call him him rotund, was nevertheless the sort of man who'd never be caught by a famine unprepared. And because of this more than regulation…

The Scarab

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He thought the scarab was bad luck. I knew too little about omens to argue.

Plant Me

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If you find the place they forgot to bomb send me a hot pink postcard. The planet is only so big. We're already dipping our heels into the waters without wanting to become true believers, miserable followers. The bedtime stories will have to…

Two Cinquains

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SPOT ON OUR LUNG We sense A stillborn dawn. A furtive, lurking gray, A sleight of dusk, eclipse, that follows Us. TITANIC'S LANTERNS Upon My rain-glazed panes Wet lights from neighbors glow Like lantern beams from shipwrecks…

Talking Down the Flames

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She'd always been an odd girl, nearly raising herself. As she got breasts and hips the boys complained that she was easy to get in the backseat, but afterward the car wouldn't run, not ever, like the engine died the moment they used her willingness up. So

Life during Wartime

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Nothing good comes from being lowered into a well to take a photograph, boy

Corporate Zombie Voodoo The rantings of a middle aged male against the corporate culture of America

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This seems to be what happens to the Corporate Zombie Cowboys. They get eaten by their own Zombie Kings. The hardest part is I can see them coming, I am on the menu, and I cannot avoid them.

Heartlong

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... reason never lies...

Hole

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For a person you don't know, a stranger with a lot of place, you think much of him.

Dancing Beneath a Gazebo

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We learned to dance beneath a gazebo / in Spring Lake Park / We were fourteen

The Dark

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Outlined against the thinly layered darkness of the room, there is a silhouette of a small boy with his feet pulled up to the chin, failing to hold its own against the thousand stares from the deep violating the stillness of his room, their long familiarity with the…

When I Am Dead, Let Someone Tell Him Of My Suffering

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Susie watched the record, her mouth agape just slightly, the spinning vinyl unveiling the powerful sound of a voice she'd wanted to hear her whole life.

With Emily Dickinson as Walt Whitman Walks in the Bar

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Oh no, here is that Whitman man I’ve heard he is a bounder. Don’t look his way or catch his eye- Just get another round, dear.

In Search of Dawn

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the air is a fierce tangerine tonight

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

The Tree That Took Brooke’s Faith Away

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The thing was, though, she couldn’t shake the image of that dead dog she had found inside the black trash bag she thought could be first base, right before the twins said, Screw the game, let’s swing.

News That Stays News

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Some trick of the morning light makes the tattoo on her ankle look like the burn from a branding iron. She had watched her father as he slept last night. He was handsome and innocent, like a baby boy.

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

Down to Earth

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He ran his forefinger round the rim of the lid then sucked at his fingertip. The texture's like chalk, he thought, it tastes of earth. He hadn't anticipated this — but dipped his finger in again and swallowed. It was like scraping his tongue against a blackboard on…

How To Write Funny

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I've never really been impressed with authors that write long teary-eyed novels about people dying of terrible diseases or uplifting stories about the armless boy who made the wrestling team.

Toothbrush

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...and he would stumble from bed in a panic and fling the toothbrush at the mirror cursing all the while "fuck fuck why can't I forget her".

Meander

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Things are a little out of hand. Information fills room after room after room. I have no bloody idea where I am. I have your photo, but the navigational coordinates are difficult to interpret. Where the hell are you, anyway? I don't like mazes — too much like…