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It's Next Door

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The old lady from next door had been really quiet for the last few days.

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.”

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.

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.

Awakening

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I was awakened by a disturbing dream. He was no longer with me and I felt afraid. Everything was cloudy, almost blurry. I couldn't see much in front of me, but I knew for sure he wasn't there with me. Then he said the words I feared the most “I don't love you.…

Placeholders

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Everyone falls,

Research Notes - Single Stroke Seven

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It is within my nature, and many others I know, to cling to what’s consistent and certain: the battles fought in the war for survival and the organic camaraderie borne in the trenches. Sometimes the quest and the people we commiserate with along the way

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…

Chapter Two: Oracle

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The first thing I saw was a sandal, but it didn't exactly look priestly. It was golden and glowing, and the foot it was strapped to had red painted nails. The straps wrapped around her ankles, and up her slender leg, tied off in a bow below the knee.

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…

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

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A woman is fishing in the Seine at the far left of the painting, while time is suspended and light remains. One man plays a trumpet. A half dozen people sit or walk under parasols. Couples stroll and children run or sit or stand beside their p

Reciprocation

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"I have a prehensile tongue," he said matter-of-factly. "I know how to make you feel good." Such confidence, I say. Prove it.We're sitting on the couch, watching a movie, but not paying attention to it. We sit side-by-side, my leaning into him, and his arm is around me,…

Spy vs. Park

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Things looked way too normal to be normal. The cold, gliding black eyed swans never once straying far from each other's wake, the cute blue jeaned lovers everyone secretly watched carefully picking their trickling way over small odd rocks and…

The Celebrity

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Mr. Blumberg and I sat side by side on a small couch in the family room. He was watching a football game on TV.

Ballpoint Sketches for Banana Peel Poems

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I wanna make banana peel poems-- slippery little booby traps

A Word About Everything

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I remember having a beer once And feeling like a minor god And I know in some lie you told Your life began making sense And I also know that the mind likes logic But the heart loves chaos I just hope flies land on the butter of your soul

Wild Dreams of Reality, 13

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At 7:30 that evening my brother knocked on Parker's front door. When I went to let him in, sweat was running off Darrell's head like he'd been hit by a water balloon. The air was absolutely unmoving, and there was the smell of tar from the asphalt in th

Winter's Presence 2010

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A short triangular plastic shovels into the/White plastic container filled with topaz crystal-like/Salt granulars. Scratchy sandy sounds echo.

1970

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deformed or retarded

She Waited for the other Shoe to Drop

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She Waited for the other Shoe to Drop

Mercy Mercy Mercy

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When I was young and self-born in religion my aunts, uninterested in being washed in the Blood of Christ, called me Preacher Boy. I didn't pay them any attention. It was fine by me, I said, if they wanted to sit around and paint their toenails . . .

The Rug

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Marge bought the rug on-line.

Write power

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Write power like a purring kitten eyes wide without an idea of exactly how small he is.

Hello Cheryl

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“Hello, Cheryl” the voice on the other end of the phone replied. It was strong but raspy, yet quiet and controlled. The fellow sounded like he had a frog in his throat. “How do you know my name?” she asked. “I know a lot of things about y

Consider the Living

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we're not at war / with the world. We have papers.

Battleship

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You compare the brightly-colored wires sprouting from the bandage wrapped around your stepson's head to a bouquet of flowers. The tech sits in a chair next to Brett's hospital bed and holds up line drawings of common objects: cats, boats, skyscrapers,…

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…

Party w/Your Parents' Siblings

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Her mother sighed, fingering the faux-pearls around her neck. Barbara's neck tensed, almost as though the hair on the back of it would stand up: Here comes a platitude . . .

Bearing Witness

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I hold them to the light...