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Sparky's Gambit

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Sparky took to me immediately. In some atavistic canine way he knew I was simpatico to a dog like him.

Not real words about a not real place

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I'm going up and down elevators all over the Financial District and I have no office.

Upstairs on Montague Street

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Benton showed her his old room, a shrine of old posters and records. But it had been cleaned out, made to look like a guest room. “Kiss me,” Benton said. “April.” “That was just a name, so don't get any…

Searching for Mr. Bharath Seshardi

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This tall, very blonde, very female, friend of mine. . . .

Envy the book

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Once, during an argument, she had said, It’s like there’s another woman, except she doesn’t exist. Which sometimes it really did feel like, a betrayal, being thrown over for someone else. The muse. She could have shot the muse.

Gravity as Destiny

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Falling// is something that comes quite naturally/ to puffed up things. Like the soufflé

Personal Hell - I'm Not Scared, Just Disappointed

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Satan is a wide-eyed Pollyanna mime who communicates with a ventriloquist dummy that corrects my grammar, speaks in internet acronyms, tells me that I’d be a lot prettier if I just smiled more and lost fifteen pounds, and nags me about how all my problems

Older Now

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You will never know how much it hurts When someone else touches your face. But I also know how much you count on others To pull the slivers out of your heart.

Quantized

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“Wait, so you’re Burt Lancaster? You’re not tall enough to be Burt Lancaster.” I popped a hand over my mouth. Wine as truth serum would do me no favors.

Big Hot Day

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There is an emotion out there I can feel it already in me swimming around in my blood like a big hot postulation. Like a big hot hand of light.

Orpheus Today

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It is only seven-thirty but the night is full, gloom seizing Highway 66. There is a carcass on the road, maybe a human, slumped next to an empty ice cream truck. Several stars hang up in the East, drunken constellations scrambling to find meaning.

The General

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Where the General is, the world is data and patterns and signatures.

Time Flies

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Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince

My No. 1

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I remember meeting you many years later.

Beelzebub

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The jewels were dragonflies, buzzing lazily, Beelzebub’s hair a golden meadow.

Buzz Kill

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Blood had soaked through his Converse All-Stars, and into his cotton sox. It was the smell of metal, of iron more specifically, that nudged his mind out from the fog of shock and denial, closer to the reality of his circumstances.

Down

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Locked at the highest rung Unable to budge at all

Human Spirit - a poem

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It feels for an exit.

On being offered a seat on the Bart train

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Remember when I entered a room and turned heads is my youthful charm a sputtering fire in the hearth

Lament of the Horror Movie Marathon

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I'm in our bed eating yesterday's pizza and chain-watching pirated foreign horror films

Sin

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Sin by Nonnie Augustine After my mother died, I met Aunt Shirley. I found her in dozens of snapshots piled in falling apart cardboard boxes we hauled down from the attic. Small girls, with huge bows bobby-pinned right on top of…

Her Head Sounserals Away

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"Bortne! Bortne! Shushort!" she exclaims, shooting her hands over her wobbly head in pleasure, causing it to again pop off. This time, it's a three story drop from a balcony. Terrified, he yells "Sneeeeew nuuuu! Oh nee padoooo!"

Just Right

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While the tea was steeping, Ms. Darcy unwrapped the package. The book was lovely. It had nice heavy paper and the print was a good size for reading. The cover was glossy and not too showy, and Ms. Darcy thought it would look just right on her shelf.

Truth Or Consequence - 3

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"What does it say about our political process when I could pick students at random out of any of my classes who would do better than the actual candidates. That scares me. What’s happening to people? How did we get here?”

WAR STORY

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We shot out the windows of an abandoned building nearby so as to trick them into thinking we’d had snipers stationed in that building. They shot at the abandoned building.

The End of Coffee

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I am getting twisted like a cruller into the mess I have made of this morning and I am stretching the meaning of morning to way past its boundaries.

Quinine Tablets

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a little bitter for the better

Popcorn Tigers

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The last row of furniture is all black leather. In unison the tigers hop onto a couch a piece, sit calmly on their haunches, and reach for remote controls buried in the cushions. Roaring, they paw at the remotes.

A Christmas Mistake

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But that night we were happy, looking all around at the bright lights of the several cities that we could see.

Parabolic Turns

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There was a man dressed in stately attire. His name was Abacus, which maybe you find strange, but then keep this in mind: it is, after all, just a name.