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The Widow and a Portrait of Jesus in Grayson's Nursing Home

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He'd hung above her head for months.

Nadja on Nadja -- an excerpt

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"I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence, memory trace of past events, as the snail leaves its slime." Francis bacon “Feminine …

that's what sea said

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i thirst always for that poetic mouthful

Coleridge on Urine

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What a beautiful Thing / Urine is

Quicksand

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God damn you women get me all / twisted up thinking oohrahrah and lala

The Miracle

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On the way to the drinking fountain, Elysia Martin, a third grader at St. Michael's Parochial School, heard a voice calling her name. When she turned toward the white plaster statue of the Virgin Mary that sat between twin hedges in the rose garden, she

Learning About Sonnets

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Sitting in the upper last row of Wyatt Hall, Matt stretched his long legs under the fold-up desk top. He looked down past his fellow students' heads to barely catch something Dr. Mock had said. . . .

A Sliver of Light

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Light slunk in from under a door, but just a sliver.

Explaining To A Dog

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My wife tells me/your dog has vomited/ on the carpet AGAIN!

11

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eleven o'clock spills despair all over our bedspread

Sleepless #3

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My ex-girlfriends live in a pastel-drenched cabin on the edge of a hemlock forest in Canada somewhere,

The Next Landscape

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The day came shyly up to me like a rolling orange thing. Perhaps of alien origin, but not if the Buddha of our foolish hopeless dreamer inside has anything to say about it. It said, pick me up. I did. It looked like forever on the inviting horizon with trees as…

Picture Window

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You call your wife. “Do you see what I see?” you ask.

Preparation

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We may not be capable of even trying to appreciate the fact of mortality until we are somewhat older—let's say 18 years old. But, from the age of 18 until we die—and die we will; we know that—we have the opportunity to spend some time thinking abou

Snow and snow, and snow and snow and snow, and snow, and snow

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A tough enough signal to read under the best of meteoric circumstances, this is one maybe I'll keep on thinking about. I might be able to make something everlasting out of this crazy shamble for love after all. I no longer…

Arcana Magi Zero Arc 3 - c.5

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Alysia raised the staff over the huddle and together everyone created a barrier. The wind blew past them and the grey mist surrounded them.

Puppy Love

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That was the summer that Christine Nelson owned me. It felt like catching the flu. I had it bad. I was about to turn seven, and it was my first time, and it was bad. A love like that, I don’t know, it’s not a love supreme. It wasn’t completely cru

Puppet X, 1

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I know you, ladies and gentlemen We see the near future through you Your factual face as you sit indoors Youthless In your ordinary chair

Wilma

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Every morning, Wilma's husband Richard would cross the street and visit with a neighbor, always after the neighbor's husband left for work. Wilma was a loner, never bothered with neighbors. She enjoyed sitting on her patio in her lounge chair,…

To Hit a Woman (Lightly)

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Tension slipped from my grip on the dagger as my legs and faith fell apart.

Tchotchkes

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Each little token is the world/ as you knew it at each time and place

The Outlaws

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"So, what do you do for fun around here? I mean, other than each other?" Carlo's smirk broke into full-fledged laughter; Yuri feigned shock. Iris leaned forward and breathed into Bronte's ear: "We misbehave."

Big Legs

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Her body: normal as a body, a baby’s body: skin and eyes.

The Nature of Things

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She’s not coming today. She didn’t come yesterday either.

My Smelly Valentine

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He asked me if I was going to buy Valentine's for the office this year, and I shook my head. We were in the dollar store, February 13, and I could get a box of twenty kids' Valentines with last year's favourite cartoon…

Beneath the Light of an Exploding City

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Under the darkness of their new city. The heave and moan of structures as they breathed and pulsed. Under the darkness of this city, under the hum of their florescent bulbs and the tumbling rattle of motorcars, the wheeze of their machines and the clank o

The Scream

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Coagulating sky, a turbulentheave of orange, blood red,hell's fire smeared —below, tar seas bulgeat the seams, engulfing ships.Pier-bound she streaksand wails as the seaswells and threatens to claim —, corpse head, baldeyes, her death robescling to…

flash poem

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Why flash?because the moments, the moments, they pass in flashes of brilliancethat shudder, death glow alightand nothing makes sense beyond nowand nothing will help me but meand I am not even enoughnot my thoughts or your nod of assentor even the deep sigh of…

Strawberries

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The strawberries remind me of you,Fat and fleshy,Pimple-dimpled.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Walk on Ferry Beach, Maine

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"and I turned to you, at some joke we shared, and saw winter ease its hand,"