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10 cities, 7 weeks, 7 countries & poems

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I'm not sure if this is breaking the rules of Fictionaut, but here's a trailer of a poetry tour of Europe I did earlier this year. We hope to break it down into webisodes soon enough to highlight the brilliant readings, brilliant local poets and such that you can find not…

Midnight Mass

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Mom wraps a bulky-knit scarf around my face and over my mouth. She tightens it into a big knot in back of my collar.

The Poetry of Wallace Stevens' Secretary

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What in the name of God’s green earth does this say? “Chifferobe if you can of Aztec in coffee can”?

River Run

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yearning amid the waning

The Edge of the World

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I am far from home, wherever that is.

Two Micros

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She always wore a little smile. When she took off her robe, the class grew quiet.

Mobile

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They stand together in the doorway looking at the crib.

BABY MOUSE

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BABY MOUSE She and the baby squeeze into the neon blue star-studded rocket ship in front of K-Mart, a tight fit because the baby's still inside her and the ship is made for under ten year olds and the steering wheel dents her stomach and the baby backs up and…

Leg and Leg and Another Leg

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The robot may be grabbing onto something so big I'm mistaking it for the countryside, or the sunset. I could just be one cog in an infinite chain of leg-attachment, stretching from the cosmos to the sub-atomic.

Daddy's Teeth

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At night, I wake up, and Daddy's in the bathroom with a hanger in his mouth....

Out of Character

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Co-workers have started calling him Jesus, Manson, Foghat, Doobie Brother, hippie, hipster, Grizzly Adams, Dude Lebowski... there’s really no end to it.

Cleaning House

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If you've ever cleaned house because a death is coming,you know it's the same as any other kind of cleaning.Wipe the tables.Pick up the floor.Sweep the crumbs under the carpet.For later.And for the ants.It's different, too.Because you're floating.On caffeine.On muffled…

Shaken But Not Stirred

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It happened right after I had taken my Uzi to work, retrieved it from my Brooks Brothers briefcase, and fired it upon my desk and its assorted discontents, their paper lives bunched together by clips and notary stamps of approval, now set flying and free. I then walked into…

The Seer

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The strange bones of language wander the room.

Waiting for the Voice on the Line

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hoping for a happy outcome/ like a kindly voice on the line

Dinner in Mexico

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If he had not just decapitated a chicken, he was a man I could have loved.

Shakespeare's Dark Lady -- John Hudson (review disguised as fiction)

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William Shakespeare (a surname that meant "wanker" back in the day, by the way)

The Animal Cracker Incident (Part 2)

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“I feel like my bones are melting.” Her arms are wrapped around her body tightly, like she’s trying to hold herself together. She’s shaking; I can hear it with every breath she takes.

Raw Meat

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I took Annie to the zoo, and the tigers got out. The little tigers, that is. Cubs. Two of them. The zoo employees scurried about, peeking into nooks and crannies.

Breath of Fresh Air

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He lost his patience and began ranting and raving, angry that he had to come home every night and feel like he was being smothered by a pillow. “I can’t make it stop,” she said. “I can’t make myself stop feeling this way.”

Gogol vs. Quixote

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“We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'," said Dostoevsky. Well, sometimes, I think otherwise.

Rwanda Suite: The Congo in Me

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I scratch a red welt onto the inside of my white knee. The knee itches like crazy. Pain too, down to my bones. The Congo calls.

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

Svalbard

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there is a vault in the mountains / that in itself contains infinite vaults

Oversleeping & Getting in Trouble for It

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A few people bristled and looked at Jim, but since he was avoiding their gaze, they had no choice but to return their attention to their own table and pretend to pay attention to the conversation they previously had been pretending to pay attention to.

Beyond Penderecki

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From a window, the young Pole Krzysztof Penderecki saw resistance fighters hanged by Nazis...

Cow

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“He looks funny again,” the twins would say. “Cow looks funny, Mummy.”

Low Clouds

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We lay in what we have made, minute fleshy bullets in the target we have made.

Night and the spell that gave me peace

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When you have lived with pain so long, you grow old and the old man inside of you takes over. That’s just the way it is.

Predator

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Uncounted hens and piglets/ die at my demand. The killing floor// runs red for me. I am/ monstrous to creatures small and great,