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Asking an Accomplished Poet Friend to Read My Poetry in a Starbucks at 2PM on a Thursday

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Your usage of the English language / is awkward and passé—

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

It Isn’t Personal. It’s Business

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because you pay/ for it to matter to me.

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.4 - c.4

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Jean-Pierre and Azure watched the security guards running around the building yelling, and Jane grabbed Azure’s arm while holding the radio.

Hungry

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Why do people kill themselves with food? It’s obvious, I suppose. They’re hungry.

Ballspenden

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Even if you're doing it together, there's no unity when everyone's dancing to their own tune.

55 words #8

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Weight of faithlessness... Mist Of bodily Existence Grave expectations for the future

Field Sobriety

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A San Francisco cab driver named Jake, a friend of a friend, was my date for the party. I didn't really like him, but I needed someone to bring. In the 70s free love was the norm, but it was hard to have sex with a guy I wasn't really attracted to. …

Assiduity Sixteen

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I'm fascinated by Don's evolution . . .

Sickness

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She wasn't even trying to live.

Me. No, you. No, me.

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Sunset swoony love waves crash over me and I forget why I didn’t say yes sooner

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 8

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—So much for a cocktail at the tender hour of twilight, he told the empty beer bottle.

Darcy Eastland

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To him the younger women, contemporaries of the bride, all sounded as if they were breathing helium.

How to Be the Most Hated Person on BART (London Tube, Tokyo Bullet, or Any Public Transit)

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The daily slog on public transit is a battlefield. Tensions are often higher than a presidential debate, but throw a wrench into the gears (or a tree branch onto the tracks) with any “severe delay,” and add in one or more of the below faux pas, and we’re

Redline Deadline

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I ran for the car, heart pounding in my chest, feverish. I jerked the door open and dropped into the seat of the Audi S5. The ignition fired and the car purred to life. I dropped it into gear and hit the gas, tires spinning, gravel spraying. The treads caught on the hot …

threes

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i am either lacerated /or ill at ease / continually subject to gusts of life

Honoring Heritage

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salmon sits gentler on my palate

Shooting Smoke

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In our first conversation, she tells me love is a dragon: she has come across it’s destruction, hears of it’s size, mythology, of it’s immorality. I sip my hot cocoa (God, I pray she thinks it is coffee)...

Scratching into January, 2017

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Follow the money. It seeks/ the lowest of the low and finds them here/ in an embarrassing abundance.

Wallflower

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It was one of those weekday mornings in early spring when Marjorie and I could wander from chapel to chapter house with only security guards for company.

Every Thing is a Hole in a Thing That It Is Not (A Theoretical Fiction)

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A is a hole in the series of letters, each of which is also a hole in the series of letters.

Assiduity Nine

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Don and I return to Rasheed's room on the top floor of the middle house where Uzma sits waiting to speak her piece. I'm feeling blessed listening to their enthusiastic chatter. It's like the world is opening up to me again, allowing me to experience a rush of…

I Don't Want to Go to the Bronx

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"... each of them stuck in one finger to sample the goods. Just then Katie felt a breeze on her bare legs. Her skirt literally moving."

Nine Elephants and an Ass

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Nine sated elephants and an ass sit around a decimated Thanksgiving table discussing the state of the union over the hacked to bits carcass of a twenty-three pound turkey. Two years in to The Great Communicator's Lame Duck term and the nine elephants, whose…

The Facts of This Life as Its End Approaches

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The knees remind you: you are old,/ and broken, and unlikely to improve

Sarah the Witch

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Secretly she suspected she was really a witch. She didn't have green skin or scraggly black hair, and certainly no flying monkeys. Maybe those came over time, the more bad things you did, the more ugly you became until all the world could see how horrible

Skinny in her Black Dress

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black hair/ (damp) around her ears Keys on the table Drinking coffee from a glass

The seduction

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1. HeWomen's heads turned when Remy stopped in the doorway — as they always did. He noticed — as he always did — but paid no attention as he scanned the room. Too nervy to care. No sign of Fiona. Good. It paid to be the one doing the…

The Interview

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What follows is an interview George Bush gave to Barbara Walters in 2006. He came off like something out of a swamp. Dick Cheney made them deep-six the tapes and we never saw it on prime time. I got the transcript, however,…

Reckonings

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Even in the fading light, it looked big enough to disembowel a man.