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Danse Macabre

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Each day, they trot the coiffed/ and painted cadavers across the stage.

Hybrid Man

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The day I met Griffin Burns was the worst day of my adult life. However, it wasn't a series of unfortunate events, one mistake which followed an unlucky break which followed a bad situation; nothing …

Windfall

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It turned out Eel’s brain corrects for imbalance, and he can only feel danger for a moment or two.

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.

High Jinks

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“Gorgonzolla!” The remnant croaked, his eyes wild as he thrust an open hand in Jaffron's direction. A burst of energy tilted Jaffron's pod on its axis and sent it hurtling backwards...

The Late, Late Show

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This is my secret source of income, you see....

Joking

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I don't care much for Joking, which is not to say that I don't care at all for Joking, just that I don't care much. I would say, if I had to say, that I care for Joking about as much as I care for a cousin, not a close cousin, one I have a genuine frien

OF ALL 2,000 YEARS

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OF ALL 2,000 YEARS 10 Point The city after the snow was Medieval, the thousand paths wound as browsing deer. Inside her coat what wild heart. Lethe The beads were rolled-river at her throat, milk blue on a yellow string. I…

Dancing on the Rhythm Bus–One Night after Leaving The Pyramid Club, 1991

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The next day I can’t recall at all, a waste, like the flash of twenty years of my life, faces that pass you like comets in some erogenous unnamed zone of night, but they got me in some isolation room with my wrists in leather restraints.

The Ghosts in the Meeting

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No one had told the newer tenants that the dead would be given votes, and they were in an uproar: it wasn’t legal; it wasn’t fair; it was creepy.

On The Stoop

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The leaves were meaningless because they were no longer connected to the trees.

You Don’t Know Jack.

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Susan said since her divorce three years ago there have been too many Jacks in her life. Seven, if she counted that older guy. She knew that now. Too many. It was the name and little else that drew her to men. She told me the name alone was like Pavlov's bell. It…

Male Pattern Invocation

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in the much more terrorizing display/ of male pattern stupidity// as seen so often on TV/ in the House and at Fox News.

I Can't Complain

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To tell the truth, I can’t complain. Look, lots of people have it tough. I don’t have it tough...

Truth Or Consequence - 3

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"What does it say about our political process when I could pick students at random out of any of my classes who would do better than the actual candidates. That scares me. What’s happening to people? How did we get here?”

Conversations

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That won’t kill me, will it? I asked. Maybe, the doctor said.

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.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 17

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The next day we were sitting at that same outdoor café on the square, trying to savor a peaceful meal of duck plucked fresh from the Vltava River, when the very same waiter passed by and said, “Bet you wish you had some peeg now, no?” There were camer

Curfew

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The Houston police devised a punishment for the adulterous thespian that would not hurt the nights or household income of his French young wife.

House of Dreams

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The cat wound itself around Megan’s neck, its purring curling through Megan’s consciousness. She was the cat and then herself, both things at once.

Reconstruction

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My favorite lie is that he'd escaped the South Tower before it collapsed. Smoke inhalation erased his way home. Mine's better than mother's version: a stranger hurled herself onto him. The truth is when they stopped search and rescue, mother told father, Go. Even dead, his…

Elise Imagines Herself Behind Flowers: 1938

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In your mouth is the attic studio Where your father’s brushes lie wet with water

Kanha's Dream

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"Look at the grime on those curtains. Not fit for an Emperor. Pull them down. Put up fresh new ones. Not a spot." "Oh! Look at this throne. All uneven legs. The gems are not shining. The gold looks dull. Fix it, fix it, fix it!"

Ghosts

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I see ghosts. They accost me in their sleep. Hundreds of them. When I wake up (after a long night of half-waking), I think, What wold ghosts want with me? I have nothing for them. But at night they're there again, watching, tapping my shoulder as I lay awake. Sometime…

I'll be Home for Christmas

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She hasn't called me in days. Before calling her, I search my memory for something romantic to say. Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 says exactly what I'm thinking. But she doesn't need to hear it. She already knows, as all human efforts come to an end, my core energies are tapering…

Strained

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She wonders if he will do the dishes. He said that he would, but that doesn’t mean anything. He said he would do them last week, said he would save money, said he would come home last night. He didn’t do any of those things, either.

Annulling the Future

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If you can’t consummate tomorrow / you may as well just annul the future

Safe

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She left knives and hot pots with handles akimbo. Like a guardian angel, he turned them in. Like an ungrateful Eve, she turned them back out.

Robot Museum

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ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF ROBOTS!

Were I Konstancja Gladkowska

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My playing would falter languidly, and transcend itself like a wishful Nocturne