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THIS is what happened — the dead went into remission. Dated may 10 2010. Or it could have been some other day. They were going to be restored later. That's what we were being told. The dead were being given stones to mark their remission. They were getting…

Biz One-Upmanship 101

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"One-upmanship" is a strategy for defeating an opponent somewhat unfairly without actually cheating.

Hard Times

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None of this is real, he says, and the path slopes down to a house that is possibly haunted. One always looks in such windows, one cannot not look at the predictable detritus of another's failure, a queer satisfaction, a fairy's dust. But no, not real, none of it. And…

Explaining To A Dog

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

The Paintings at Lascaux

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Essences of bull and bison,// stag and horse, illuminate/ the stony underground.

Tying Flies

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He plucks the feathers and winds thread to simulate an insect’s torso.

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 …

Grandma (My Mother) At Christmas

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A tanka/haiku poem about grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

recipe

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secret recipe

Storm and Shelter

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Sometimes one person's shelter is another person's storm.

Navigation and Perseverance

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“Gladys Miller!” the dog shouted. “Live a little. TiVo it.”

White girl/boy angst

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I’m secretly hoping for a huge bouquet, a fruit basket, a pickle jar of urine in a lunch bag on my doorstep, even.

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.

Chocolate Diamonds

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with facets

Sax Named Pegasus

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I was just sitting in the corner, stirring my stories with a straw that sucked characters out of bars.

A Figure Left the Building

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A figure left the building.

Subsistence Culture

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Defy the impulse to grow beyond/ your means and the means of the/ place where you lie at night.

Real Heart

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A heart which is alive despite everything in the world that wants to deaden it.

Brave New World

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awoke in confusion, fear and hurt never seen before that day a year past

Rain Dance

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You were gone, long gone, and I could no longer smell your scent as I walked through the empty house. I couldn't bring myself to unpack the boxes, and they lurked like a forest of overgrown drab Legos.

Brain Cleaning & Repair

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You've been given some really cruel thoughts that are not your own.You've been given some really stupid sets of rules which are impossibleto follow. You can learn to manage for yourself. Remember who youwere before they told you who you were. You've been trainedsince birth…

Snuggle

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“I’m tired, Art” The Virgin said. She was already curled up beside their dog, Lance.

Whispers (set of 3 themed poems)

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.

Three Micros

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I asked the hospice nurse about maggots.

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.

The First Day of Summer

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It is the first day of summer, a blue-green afternoon, and we sit beneath the English oak, Quercus robur. Everything has at least two names. It is the first day of summer, or the last day of something else.

Smoke and Stars

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as distant lights all must shiver before joining in a Milky Way river

My Poetic Nemesis

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Except for the bathroom stalls—you know the one that goes “Here I sit all broken-hearted”—the only poetry in the house is composed by Hazel, recited to her fawning sycophants.

Luz Maria

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Although badly educated, and although the Michoacána fought to deny it, she held the complex notion that borders are not abrupt lines, simple artifacts of geography and cartography.

Greenback Fly

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It doesn't take a genius to figure how he sank, in the drink, like Jeff Buckley. Like a stone.