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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

Edward Ogle the Third

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Assimilated wheat germ integrated ant worm the capital of brazil.

Knell Quarternion

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The Jester sat down on the edge of his mattress. He laboured to bring one gout ridden leg up to lay across the other. The jingle bell at the tip of his pointed toe mocked each serrated movement of his limb with a jaunty tinkle. He grabbed his ankle to arrest its…

Ackermann

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When he took Medieval German Lit in graduate school, Ackermann read Der Ackermann aus Böhmen by Johannes von Tepl. His professor was amused both by his last name and that his grandparents were Germans from Bohemia. Of course, only his grandmother was from Bohemia and…

Pharaoh

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Altodog was dressed in filthy chef’s trousers and a long-sleeved purple dress shirt, somewhat dignified by a tattered black vest.

now

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koalas burning

I Can Take Satan

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It was all I was convinced / in designing the encounter.

The Push-Up Ranch

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There is a push-up on the ceiling. I don't know how to get it down. I've tried hitting it with a broom. That just made it blow steam. I asked my wife, did you do push-ups on the ceiling? She did. Why? It's easier up there. The cat doesn't bother me. Well, you left…

Prince Charming

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They could have heard a pin drop in the car for the rest of the ride to her house, where she looked at him one last time and found nothing admirable, nothing memorable about him.

Make Out Party

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He begins talking about string theory. He reels me back in, from the dinosaurs to the infinite, human evolution and alternate dimensions, until it makes so little sense that everything makes sense.

The Serious Writer Tracks His Stats

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The officers carried him away in cuffs as he yelled "I NEED STATS! PLEASE! JUST GIVE ME THE STATS!"

Glory at the Motel 6

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Rory and Betty Sloan entered the first of 40 rooms in the new Motel 6 to place Holy Bibles in 40 night tables.

Frozen Shells

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I had some words, but the truth is they don't mean a thing because whatever it is I was trying to say to you always crumbles to the ground in front of you. I had some words, but the bullying wind was stronger than me and ripped them…

::HARD (excerpt)

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It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t scary. It wasn’t great. And it never is with people. Except..eventually..when you meet the right person..it is.

SHADOW

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I am a shadow. Cooler than liquid. I don't need a container to take shape.

The Birds

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My wife goes away for a few days to the little town where Hitchcock filmed The Birds.

Father Must (from The New Yorker)

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It might not seem easy to breathe any love into a name like Father. It’s a stiff word—it’s not soft, like, say, Papa—but sometimes you have to breathe love into names you don’t choose.

Good Home Wanted

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In his fridge he had one piece of meat. He hadn’t been expecting me. I cooked it for him and watched him eat.

A Safe Place

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I think of our first morning in front of the mirror and the hairbrush that we shared—the hairs in it brown from you, blonde from me. I miss this day and when I cannot sleep, I watch your window from my room until your light goes out. Sometimes, I can se

Lesson Plan

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Maybe tonight, maybe next week,/ maybe only in my waking dreams,/ I’ll teach another lesson-

Elusive Ideas in a Pineapple Under the Sea

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I cannot find my way back to the bubbling navel of the universe because of Spongebob Squarepants.

Layers

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"... Sometimes I think I'm so close to knowing what it's all about, to knowing myself, and then sometimes everything seems so hopeless, as if I haven't learned a thing."

Gregory Dates a Witch

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None of us took it too seriously when Gregory from underwriting said he was dating a real-life witch. Being an underwriter is not as interesting as say being a writer. That's why the greatest underwriter in America, Ajit Jain, gets paid per hour what Jame

New Homes / New Fears

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How would you like to leave the land of your ancestors, the place of your birth, the home of your identity?

For the young couple in the stairwell passed on my way to teaching Medieval World Literature

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I have/been you/years before/of course

A Drowning

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Her time was spent in its usual way, breakfast, pills, organizing and cleaning. It was just hours behind today; hence the late swim. She was proud she did it, that she went outside. She swam, moved herself in the pool, chilly as it was. The pump made a wa

Faithless

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She was now sitting in her bathtub. The warmth of the water made her pale, rich vanilla skin flushed with the fullness of circulation as her pores continued to allow the passage of her toxins from her system.

Behind the Writing - Music

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A powerful song is often a result of imaginative storytelling through a unique “voice” and pitch-perfect musicality.

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

A Body Divided, 6

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When I finally went back to school in the fourth grade, after coming down with polio, my classmates were very welcoming, though I couldn't go outside and run around like them yet at recess or lunch time. That would come, just not right away. But it was th