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Another "Accidental" Tryst

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She smacked his back a couple of times with the flat of her hand

The Glass Shop

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She burst Into the glass shop

Why We Were Arrested

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We have a responsibility,” she says, “to enrich our local business community while delivering quality products to customers.” She had brought over some application forms for the Better Business Bureau, and we sit at the big table and fill them out, marki

A Brief History of The Real

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A little contempuous aside by the critical theorist guy, Frederick Jameson-- that it was logically absurd to call anything that human beings do, produce or effect “unnatural,”-- has brought forth the following. We are…

Because words are insufficient

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The day you came to the wedding the sky was so, so brightly July./ I saw my face where I left it the last time . . . .

Where I work you cannot see the sun.

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Where I work people use words like leverage. They do not appear to denote anything.

Captains of Industry

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Renee said, "I have actually slept with a number of Captains of Industry and would rate them, overall, deficient in skills."

The Sin Eater

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Priests didn’t just disappear, not without a reason, so there hadn’t been any doubt when Merrick was suddenly replaced. No one had said it, but they didn’t have to. And her boys, thank God—at least he’d done nothing to them.

Amelia

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Every time she tries to sleep they come; legions of small armored things scuttle claws aloft across the purple sand as soon as she stops moving.

A Body Divided, 3

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A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

The Meaning of Life

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One must not confuse the meaning / of life with the joy of living

Hart Crane Pantoum No. 1

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One must be drenched in words.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 13

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Creamcheese straightened out that spectacular yellow dress, tucking a fully exposed nipple back in under the material. She pulled down the hem of the dress, then strolled right into the Savoy like a wooden duck being pulled on a string, and headed straigh

The Beast Remembers Its Broken Promise and Starts to Cry

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It's a good thing too—because Of the way that feeling Made her even more beautiful than usual. You shouldn't doubt such an obvious Feeling. It's a good thing— Because frankly you have Been informed before. When Beauty …

Collapsible Horizon

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Mama sleeps in bed with us. The blue of her ghost sleeps underneath me. I love her more than anything. What does she think when we are naked, when we yell, or mimic, imbibe, curse, cry, shake, make love, roll over on her, want to die?

February 1964

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New York, New York The winter drizzle left the streets shiny like in movies and this night Manhattan looked like it should look, vibrant, clean and sparkling. It was…

Reflections

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Today the color of the skyremakes my heart into somethingless willing to break, or to judge,and I am thankful for it. Acolor not unlike walking chestdeep in the ocean and seekingbeautiful clouds and thinking Iwill be back. Dreaming with the sky.Please stop lying to me. A…

I Wish I Could Say This to Your Face

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The day you came home, after three extended tours in Afghanistan, I wanted to welcome you at the bus station, but I was afraid you'd attach yourself to me again.

Life Experience

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Karen likes to make a big deal about life experience. Specifically how much more she has than me. What that actually means, she's never made clear. The definition changes and mutates as the years go by, always in her…

Arcana Magi Zero - c.1

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The moon is now at the corner on pace for the horizon. On top of a tall business building in Downtown Newark stop a woman in a hood cloak.

When the Moon Blooms

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Your faded presence in sepia dream returns, firelight whispers and vanilla scented ash. We were a beautiful knot: sinew and hemp, burlap and magnolia petal, concrete and vapor. Gray kisses hovered overhead, misty…

The Virgin of Last Resort

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In a little dirt church at the end of the world stands the ikon of an unrecognized saint.

CfK

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A sturdy and goatish original by know-nothing punks from the sticks. Who cares if we were puny and smelled like fresh milk? For a few years we played and rocked, even turned the Appalachian soundscape a little brown at the edges. At least at first. Mainly

In the Alley

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as i sink down into the shadows crawling like a worm past cold bricks centuries old in my blood

f**k xmas

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Christmas Eve arrives with a relief that the season of joy will soon be over so I can feel the pain I am denying myself. Rosie presses her face against the kitchen window, leaving ghostlike impressions of the tip of her nose and her lips on the glass tha

Wild Dreams ofReality, 11

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I took my first shower away from home as if it were a ritual cleansing. It felt especially good, even exciting to be taking a shower in the bathroom of another woman. Why was that? Maybe because it didn't have marble around the bathtub, and it wasn't e

Museum of Everything

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It is the monad.

Why No One Writes Epics Anymore

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No one writes epics anymore. Why? Perhaps it's because we no longer share mythologies. Once there was a shepherd, and now there is a Google bus loaded with pricks. Yes, you say, but they are good at math. Each and every one of them. And this is true. I envy them…

Tangerine Slip Cat

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I knew my cat was capable of telepathy when I began to have isolated, random, non-cause-related thoughts about food and feelings, little signals, and I realized that the signs — images of tangerines, tuna, bones; the idea of choice; slate, names; the feeling of…

King of Pain

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I woke up around 6 pm today. As always, mum would wake me up. I have this special bond with my bed and parting with her during my most vulnerable is anathema to my nature. Thrice mum would pull my feet and thrice I would groan hoping she would go…