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You Never Forget Your First

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There is nothing like your first time, and by that I am referring of course to the first time you purchased a 45.Going to a record store and buying a 45 is a uniquely Boomer experience. Because, alas, there are no more 45s. Or, for that matter, record stores. The…

Castor and Pollux

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Over the stained fence the spectres flew and that is where the rain was turning colder and colder in the time when the trees had become mostly bare.

en/core

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(vogued.)

Hip-Hop Elephants of the Golden Palace

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Hello floaty word man / suspended in smoke / chortling coughing with collapsing colon / spraying sounds into the day / making it night and ending the line

Killing Hope

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Hope was beauty before I even knew what beauty was with her golden pigtails, brilliant blue eyes and an infectious smile — even after Jamie Delano flung his Frisbee, knocking out Hope’s two front teeth.

For My Sons, a Poem

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In time, I will forgethow he said "smooshie" for "smoothie"and "eyebrowns" for "eyebrows,"how his upper lip dimpled when he laughedin that uproarious, wild toddler way.How he wheedled to be wrapped and rocked,after a bath, even at age five,his long calves uncovered by…

Our Merchant-Ivory Weekend

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“A shibboleth is a test—a way to separate da wheat from da chaff that's as old as the Bible, but as new as the latest trend in men's fashions,” Gus says.

They're All Bleepin' Poets, Jack

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Occasionally I will pick up a quarterly— As a budding poet, to do what I oughterly, And peruse the pages for helpful examples That I can crib or use as samples.

Fa La La La La

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A pinprick breaks the black/ and pins the spin of constellations/ around its still point.

Rubber-Band Requiem

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“Now we lay you in your grave There was no way you could be saved You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell Which is why you will burn in hell.”

9/11

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He laughs and runs just like the other boys even though he doesn’t have a father now, just his mom.

The Hour of the Wolf

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Beneath an opal moon, the open field and wilderness across it look immersed in varying shades of blue. A strong night howler blows across a little girl's face as she walks the field as if in a trance; her whole visage framed against the backdrop of this very act …

Five Million Yen: Chapter 8

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He finished the omelet and started in on the short stack. He drowned the cakes in syrup. -Never can have enough syrup.

Just the Facts

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skin cancer walks along Zuma beach at noon

The Stars in Illinois

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Only early June, but the heat feels like August. Eleanor and Shelby sit on the front steps of the old Victorian-style house in downtown Los Angeles, drinking homemade margaritas and watching the daylight drain away to dusk. Shelby slaps a mosquito away fr

Bow Ties & Brooklyn Dressing

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collars of obedience / discarded in the pyre / with draft cards and bras

Shutter

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Background foreground life in the middle

West Side of the Tracks

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The bus heads west on Route 36, toward the next stop – Howell, New Jersey. After driving ten minutes, and after crossing the tracks, the bus gets a flat.

Liking in "The Scarlet Letter"

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like the dome of an immense lamp like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide

What you're waiting for.

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I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.

Memories

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I stomped up the steps clearing my shoes of snow. I was wearing my Rooskie fur hat with the ear flaps, and I kept it on when I went inside.

Ring, Ring, Ring

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If this is trouble, please call someone else.

Tour Guide

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“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”

Blues Repeat

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don't look at me honey, I fell on the table, my hair is on fire, my heart is unstable

Spider Bite

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“You done done sumpin’,” the old man guessed, “Sumpin’ bad...”

Mercury Unbound - 7

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a song jolts my memory . . .

Zimmerland

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He was just walking along, making sure that no white, Hispanic, Native American or Asian people were doing anything illegal when he noticed the young black man walking down the street. He hadn't meant to.

The People We Like

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How hard it is to pretend to be someone else. Alone, together, in the silence... I thought about how you must really like me to act quite like that. I wanted to hold your hand and read the unsent love letters.

some days are

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some days are minotaur shit on your tongue/ smokestacks dumping acid rain on your already thinning hair your eyelashes pinned in upside down, backward/you give wrong shaving directions to the mirror

Natural Histories I

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I feel about the universe/ as Abrahamics are supposed/ to feel about their Yahweh, /their God, and their Allah:/ I am in fear, I am in awe, /I am in love.