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The Painter, the Actor, the Piano Player

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1.As fast as that I wake to astonishing desire. I'd met you at my parents' house just the weekend before but for them (them the drained students trying to relax, refill before their afternoon sessions) you are the stranger in the room,…

Family

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For instance, my sister's husband. If I say brown socks, yellow boxer shorts, fishnet undershirt. If I say plastic bag and two tepid beers. And a voice that glides to falsetto when he: you're a tad too obscene for my taste, Julia, while he tries to light the filter end of…

1970

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deformed or retarded

The First Time

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Do you remember who I am yet? I remember the first time you made love to me. It appears I was one of the lucky ones … it wasn’t in a car, it wasn’t in your Dad’s boat, underwater, or any other weird place you've written about. It was actual

she has one of those names that only a southern girl could pull off

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“But I don't HAVE an accent,” she said. With an accent. “Tell him I don't have an accent, y'all.” Looking from one friend to another. Messy ponytail bouncing. I just stared. I may have blinked. A couple times. Every syllable…

Mutterings

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That old woman's got to be senile or something. The other day she asked my daughter if I had a "thing about water." Sharon told her I didn't, but then came right in and asked me, "Mother, you got a thing about water?"

One Nil

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Each step you take on the pitchEach mile driven downEach closed exit of highway Blocked avenues of importanceBoarded up HammeredNailed shutPeople and places and things You can't get to anymoreThe knife and the needle The black and the…

Beside Dripping Glaciers

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We slept beside dripping glaciers people like us We were never meant to be housed contained, kept, petted, cleaned We could only be gutted You used us one time and threw us out people like us We sprouted the wings of desire by watchi

The Underlying Order

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“Choices overwhelmed us,” Thomas continued, years later, “like waves crashing.”

Goatee

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"I'm in a wrestling movie!" you shouted.

First Ending

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His wife had just come from the gynecologist and was toying with her French fries.

Pop Bottle?

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Who ever saw an open upright pop bottle on the street?

Drug Series # 19: Heroin

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Billie Holiday and I want a cup of coffee and they tell us to go fuck ourselves.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

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Cat's ass was on fire. The roof was scorching hot. Her clothes were in a pile by the door that led to the roof. She was sitting next to the ventilation duct, her hands outstretched behind her, her knees bent before her. Jim was standing in front of…

DRIVING WITH JON

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“There’s no real freedom in this world. But a car and the open road is close enough for government work.”

White Room Trials

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November 24th-- Subject began to chew the flesh of his forearms. Researchers considered interfering but decided against it because subject was only bleeding slightly.

The Kid With the Hair

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threads of Cocoa Krispies

Tin Girl

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Like some beautiful yet macabre puppet, she was suspended on strings of wire, painstakingly threaded tubing flowing into her cavities, through her chambers, around her mechanics.

Googling A Ghost

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My buddy had been in the computer business, a systems analyst. Surely there would be some mention of him online. But there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until I saw the obituary.

Monday

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The door shuts slowly to something that’s allegedly mine and it sits there and waits until I come home just like you.

At the End of the World There Will Only Be Renegade Lovers

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I didn't believe in hiding secrets or broken arrows. So I told my new girlfriend, who in earnest, tried shedding pounds like ugly memories, who glued herself to my shag carpet, watching exerise videos--that I didn't sleep alone. I tried to be as sensitive as possible,…

Farm

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Still as the knife on the counter there still. Like mothballs in a chest. One with clear bags and newspaper clippings and your scarf inside it. The baby girl could put a mothball in her mouth and suck it like a penny. The way too close to a light bulb bur

#30: Bye-Bye (An Excerpt-Poetry)

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This is goodbye,

Wrinkles, Men and Shades of Gray

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You stand in the mirror. You see yourself. You stand sideways; your profile is always your best. You tuck in your stomach, you stick out your ass but it's the same. You stand face front. You shiver. The mirror adds weight to your already sagging breasts, the wrinkles…

Above the River's Edge

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On the plains there are no cliffs, no vast mountain ranges to persuade us that we were somewhere above the world. Yearning to escape the pull of the Earth was the big dream of a plains boy…

Unfinished Business

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The receipts all fell into the black leather valise he’d retrieved from storage that afternoon, except for the forty-eight cents, which wound up in the right front pocket of his jeans.

Low On the Hog

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Living lower on the hog than anticipated lower on the hog than previously expected lower on the hog than desired Living on the underside of the hog belly pretty much bouncing on the ground beneath the aforementioned hog belly Living clos

We Loved We Laughed We Cried

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My wife broke the news to me. She enjoyed it, too, I'm certain of that. It was a juicy piece of gossip.

A World of Hurt

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Cat fight. I rush outside and swinging my trusty broom I charge the rolling yowling ball of black fur.

Black Ribbon

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The highway stretches out in front of me, a black ribbon winding into the future; a collapsing probability of possibility connecting me with the past and through it to the future.