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Impotent

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A spire that had stood one hundred and forty years fell in a single second of the blackest day.

perfectly...fine...

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You left for the glittery wild of West Hollywood. I guess L.A.'s off-limits now. My heart goes fucking tachy when I drive over Kellogg Hill past Forest Lawn and see the skyline glowing through the rainbow haze of sunset. You're out there, out in the…

Zoo

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It's London Zoo and ten minutes to closing time. The clock walks in and out of cages. I love you baby when you laugh like that at monkeys.Penguin and pelican, wing in wing, approaching. It's some bird act, I know. Two birds from nowhere. One flies, one walks.The zoo…

The Devil's Pass

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“Devil’s Pass.” It had the highest rate of vehicle fatalities per year in the entire State of Colorado. Everyone in my state drove like a bunch of stupid rejects, so I asked the guy just how many? He replied, “Four thousand for the entire state!...Nin

Only Temporary

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It was the middle of May when I found out my teacher was screwing my mother.

Rinds

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I miss Mother gentling the small of my back. She has forgotten me. Her little girl. Whose thumb she fussed over when a rose thorn scratched it and blood spilled like a secret. Whose smile she said was her morning sunshine, whose hug was incense. I yearn for her lips…

The Canoeist's Luncheon. Renoir

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The artist leans back in his chair, smoking a cigarette after lunch, looking away from the table toward the right He is dressed in white, and he's practically stretched out his entire length, to relax after rowing the boat all morning. Sunlight

The Small Blue House

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She allowed him to wash her hair. Touching it in a wet state, running his hands through it in a soapy state, wringing the water out when he was finished—he was ecstatic.

How It Went Bad With Horsepen

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You should never have believed your daddy when he said a man with half a dog was better off than a man with no dog at all.

Ornithology

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Harpo was there with his wife. Harpo’s girlfriend came up behind the couch where I was sitting, and I ran my hand up her leg underneath her dress.

The 5 Senses of the Apocalypse

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The Rapture comes and goes unannounced in carbonated soda bubbles spicing the air.

Desire

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She said “I have to go”, he answered with his eyes “Don't” and they stepped closer to each other in the kitchen, a step on the tiled floor, the remnants of their tea cold on the counter top.

Hey Old Lady! Want To Buy A Reverse Mortgage?

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Facebook just hit me with an ad for coping with memory loss, probably because I just turned 63. As far as my favorite social media site is concerned, I am now an Old Lady. When I asked my Facebook pals who are also Seniors what kind of promotions have been turning up…

A Lot of Things to Tell You (from FATHER MUST)

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How long have you been waiting for me? How long?

The Stranger I : Vic's

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The location : Vic's Seedy Space Bar. No, that's not just a description, that's the real name.

Arrivals

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The poppers, the Viagra, the chorizo – all had been ordered and all had arrived.

chicken coup

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" I have no idea what's goin on out here, and I'm gonna find out one way or another."

Two poems

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I cut myself. Often. The bloodslice like thin lips parted/in prayer. life’s color drained to ashen/as the old world spins, pirouettes/like a circus dog on the back/of a galloping horse.

Or

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I paid the doctor / You paid the doctor

clutter

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am i a coin

Professor Einstein's Living Proof (an excerpt)

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Light “I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out.” The professor arrives on time, sockless. The former a sign of his polite upbringing. The latter, his lack of pretense and high …

Batteries For Smoke Detectors

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Crack open the roof-- raise the battery on a platform with chains up into the lightning

When I Grow Up; Or, Why Teenagers Shouldn't Listen to Angst-Rock

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rockstar, moviestar, literary supernova – burning out before all the planets are declassified.

The Sweetness of Youth

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On my twenty-second birthday, in the spring of 1979, I had a crawfish boil, my first. Ninety pounds of red mudbugs on a picnic table spread with newspaper, my birthday cake sitting at the end of the table like an afterthought.I hadn't…

Making Time

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Sleep left him like a fragmenting illusion. Suddenly, he was awake, like something pressing but fleeting had awoken him. Once awake, though, all he had was silence and stillness. His pulse quickened, his…

Wounded Animal Songbook

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I pull into the parking lot and see a group of roosters squawking and trying to overturn an ‘87 Pontiac Bonneville that's caught fire. They're pouring whiskey down their throats. They're weeping over a bag of economy sized frozen breast fillets.

Promises

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THE LAST THING I WANTED, expected, or needed was to be standing in the doorway of Carly Ray's room, watching her clutch a picture of her father, my old friend Beryl, up to her face. She is so tiny, but at the same time there is something very adult about the way she looks.…

tchotchke

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tuck me

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,…

An Orphan of Fire

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I break your flesh and make music on the harp of your bones.