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‘Miguel! A pint of Guinness, please!' I might as well have asked for his mother's immortal soul. A smile as benign as a stiletto. But he served a clean and tidy pint.

It Ain't Berklee College Of Music

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“You know who Neil Peart looks like?” Gram said, ignoring Aaron's outburst.

My Expiration Date Approaches

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the doomed, but splendid, first year GT40.

Call Me Naked

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[He] practiced aromatherapy and licentiousness, in no particular order.

Once There Was A Man

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And there sat one man. Searching for words and solace. The silence returned and the colors peeled off from the walls. Darkness returned with fledgling light. He threw back his head and filled the emptiness with his laugh. He laughed in mirth and in misery

The Good Boy

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I blinked the darkness out of my eyes and saw the man again; I could smell his breath. Just like dad’s. I must have fallen asleep. My eyes felt so heavy. I was cold. Why was I cold?

Leda and the Swan: Paul Gauguin

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Leda looks back over her shoulder at us as the swan grips her from behind while at the same time nipping at the nape of her neck. She's a freckled child and a little frightened. There's a dark smudge beneath her eye where the shadow runs. The swan

Not If, But When

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She tells me I have to face the fact that I have the heart of the Tin Man. I know the story. He had none. She is very sensitive and I have to measure my remarks because words bruise her so easily. So, I…

Too Fast to be Fat

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As it turns out, hypertravel is surprisingly slimming.

Flannery O'Connor's Tea Party

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“He's the one who took five tries to find your vein during your last blood draw, right?” This question spilled from the row of twenty EKG machines that now made up the hospital building's larynx

Books

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It sometimes happens a student remains a friend long after you both have abandon academe.

Death Is No Big Deal.

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The suite of dark rooms/ extends forever./ It’s no big deal.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 13

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The next thing we knew, the KGB started tailing us everywhere we went. They must have heard about Lenin’s Paintings, was all we could figure. Because, what if they were real? That night we went out to a pizza place where we saw the worst graffiti in t

Blue Line Southbound

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Brazilian girls yammer with their book bags up against my leg.

The Tale of Pregnant Tinkerbelle

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Everyone was shocked when they heard Tinkerbelle was six days gone and had got so heavy she couldn't fly. Who could have done it, everyone asked, but Tinkerbelle wasn't telling. So no one knew. That isn't true. I knew, and in this Declaration I swear I will tell…

The Unknowable

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He’d tossed and turned all night, pondering what to do, afraid she was living alone. He’d decided to email her two words: “Love you” and signed it “Scary Sal,” as she’d always seemed so afraid of him.

SOME NIGHTS

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Some nights you really feel it.

Stones

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Henry and I had met at the hospital. He'd been forty years my senior, but we'd been in for precisely the same reason: kidney stones.

Late Night Learning

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A wrinkled man lie atop an ivory-clad mattress, matched sheets covered his body, matched hair covered his head.

The Pennsylvania Kaufmann House

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Falling Water almost fell./ 12 million dollars later// it will splay itself a little longer

More from the Chronicles of His Demise

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Only scotch and cheap champagne/ retain their reliable flavors.

Grief Has No Welcome Garment

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Twice burned, it buries its graves.

The Clairvoyant Dwarf, The Jester, and the Tame Elk of Prague

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All were part of the household of Court Astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) who lost his nose in a duel as a student and went through life thereafter wearing a gold prosthetic one instead and who met and fell in love with a commoner who bore him eigh

Word Fish

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Looking with his ears, Hearing with his eyes, Not really mute, he simply didn't know how to speak.One word, then another string together,a crack spreads across an ice covered lake. Now there is an open channel, and his thoughts roil the…

Absence

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Her mouth was sour; her forehead was still damp with perspiration. She leaned against the bathroom wall and noted her complexion had gone pale. She wanted to slide down the wall and rest until she felt steadier, but…

Good Fences

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I built the fence myself, strong and high and aesthetically pleasing. It was high enough to provide privacy on both sides, but from my bedroom balcony I could see everything. More than I wanted to see.

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…

Springtime

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Bert also said that somebody else at the meeting was complaining about his high blood pressure, and Bert repeated what Hank had said, that he was glad to have any blood pressure at all.

I Have a Hard Time Having a Good Time

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At the third or fourth discotheque I drink so much I accidentally find myself happy.

Modest Proposal

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It could be fun,/ with the guns, explosives, Molotov/ Cocktails and all,