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TRAUMA

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Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

Souvenirs

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It is a hot August night — the same kind you remember from that summer after high school graduation. A cool breeze blows in off the ocean, sweeping across the boardwalk just hard enough to dry the …

Space Program

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Mercury and Gemini disappointed.

Max & Julia

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I heard the basketball hitting the pavement in the park across the street, right outside our window... I heard it every day in an evenly spaced rhythm, as if it was keeping time, like a metronome on my life...

Deadheading

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No matter how much he composes and prepares, he cannot override the electrical trigger in his brain. Something to do with the resonance of physical memory. It remembers amplitudes of current.

boring

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You don't want to knowthe details of my lifethe gossipthe boring moments strung togetheracross the lap ofmy sense of responsibilityit drives methrough the daysdoing this and thatchore, check on the listi am tired and need to stop for a drinkand then, i am filled up for a…

T.S. Eliot On His Deathbed

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I guess at the end you’re only looking forward. Or upward actually, since you can only lie there on your back looking upward, straight ahead toward infinity, your mouth in a grimace, with the ghostly pink lips peeled back from the teeth.

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

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Buyers of freelance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding slowly, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same way that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.

Morning People

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she thinks she looks good in her short red dress, black makeup around her eyes, last night's lipstick a slap of crimson on her cheek. "like this," she says, holding the hammer above her head.

Epiphenomenal Glider

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Hissing through the opening, the spirits have no place.

The Show Must Go On

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I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation

Artist's Statement: Oracle

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Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.

everything moved in circles

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everything moved in circles like the music, the booze and the drugs

Full Frame

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A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 21

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Francesco needed a magnifying glass to read her little missives.

ghosts

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conflicts in time

Rent a DNA

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“Yo, Paciorek. Lend me your DNA, cuz I left mine on the farm, and I have a test tomorrow,” Feller ordered in a commanding voice, because he had gumption.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 31

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I was always bi-polar. I didn’t realize it was a mental illness until my divorce lawyer had the court order a psychiatric analysis.

Four Sieges

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Nicole knows that Deirdre is winding up for the weekly pitch, practicing the line in her mind.

What People Do With Their Hands

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I said, “If this rose doesn't grow another petal in twenty minutes, I'm burning down the neighborhood.” “Just let it go,” said Paul. “No,” I said. “That's what's happening right here.” “You'll try again next…

Cheap and Convenient

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Later, when she said she'd had miscarriages, I should have put it all together.

Band Names For Sale. Inquire Within

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Mythical Itch and the Unicorns Working Late Jacuzzi Floozy One Erection Diego Rivera’s Poncho Frieda’s Moustache Avalanche Babushka Dolls Photographic Mammary Drool Sir Gruntsalot Uber Rubber Iota Pie Elder Geese Ladylike Rud

On the Roof

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Marie was on the roof. The deck, with its cool concrete pavers and faded cedar Adirondack chairs, was one of the reasons she and Harold had bought their condo in this building. The only ugly part of the roof was the chain-link fence along its edge; soon after they moved…

The Ice Cream Mantra

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Chant the ice cream mantra. Prance the do dah day ballet. Trot the t-bone tango two-step. Dance the livelong day away.

Infamy

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These were the kind of days children dreamed of. A warm sun shone over Coronado, California. December weather on the island did not prevent outside play. The wind off the bay remained soft, even if chilled. Church let out early. There was time to pla

Conversations

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

The Mix Tape

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I made her a mix tape. It was revolutionary. Twenty-two songs she had to hear at least once in her life. I even drew some trippy drug-like designs on the label of the CD to make it seem more real. It was the ocean and the sun and every body of land balled up…

O Where Did Our Funny Go?

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What a nation! First we lost our money Now we’ve lost our funny

Flamboozled in the Beak

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I was looking for an inn to get a cup of calf soup before jacking ribs at the mutton joint. Feng calls, running numbers on an engine zone out in the valley.

Prophetstown

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The elders of the town will tell you that as soon the prophet mill arrived everything went to Hell. Before the process was streamlined, prophets used to be grown organically in the community. They popped up only where the ground was tilled and a prayer was planted. They…