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Land's End

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Wearing Land’s End clothes at life’s end Driving around in circles in your Codgermobile with 3 good hubcaps. Who wouldn’t want to steal that?

Six Quarters (from Grand Street literary journal)

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Yes, my old uncle liked roses. Grew them. He had a way of smelling a rose—after he smelled a rose, you are surprised the rose is still there.

~American Woman~

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…like candy and puke on your tongue, the fakest broad ever, cruising like a busted prow, busted wheel, mast and stem, these stately wrecks and rotten flowers of perfume and the deadly bitchiness of the modern woman’s expectations.

Bait Shop

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They wanted to go fresh water fishing, so I had to buy worms. None there in the saltwater town. Drove about 10 miles over the long bridge to cross the bay. I'd been there before. Walked in and a crusty, little skinny man got up from his chair. He: Watcha need? Me: Fresh…

A Little Idea

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I have reasons to believe she’s been stealing.“ “Stealing what?” “Steaks.” “Steaks?”

A Story

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The next moment is a convergence made from a single repeating sequence that disappears behind the voice that tells of it.

A Dialectical Digression

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It performs the dialectic that intertwines real and ideal through her mounting concern about being choked to death then eaten by a very large pig.

Kingfish

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Time stole you from underneath the goldendock. Writhing there, slick as a flapping tongue;lips gored, red, whose gaping could embolden weak hands behind the blazing buck blade, long ago pierced in your summer quietus, beneath the soft shade of a tackle box, as the…

My Dad was a ditch digger

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men sitting on stoops women earning the rent by working as servants in the rich folks yard

STIFF NOW! The Early Embalming Craze Sweeping the Nation!

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Originally designed for para-morticians and pre-professional undertakers, the Protocol has now been certified and approved for over-the-counter purchase and is completely safe (check local regulations for sales to minors: not approved for veterinary use).

Baffled

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It's a tunnel, you know, like the neck of a bottle, the tunnel the hair comes up, it's coming out soon, I'm an adolescent now, dammit.

Were I Konstancja Gladkowska

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

Göttwigg’s Fandango

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It is not unusual to see Göttwigg with his shirt on inside out.

All Of My Monsters And Beautiful Women In Dreams

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1. Lamia I slapped the venomous dream from his mouth before he could spit in my eyes; fuck him and his rage, fucking Tonton Macoute or whatever he was--and I got the hell out and away from that house and the fires that raged on all floors, and I fled…

Harvest

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When the hay was ripe it stirred and rippled like water.

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.3 - c.4

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A pair of flowers leaned on each other, almost holding one another, their petals hanging off by the edge. Emi touched one of the petals to hold it up, but the dark mist appeared and made it fall off.

Dusk

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Her memory was a faded pastiche of the past, and indeed the present sat uneasily in the middle of the dreams that governed her mind; so it was that often she would forget the day, the time, the year.

Canción: Oh...Marcy Marcy Me! / milonger-milonga

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Aquél que no ve brillar una escalera de Luz surgiendo de la piel de la tormenta, es que se esconde de miedo al pensarse inpermeable a su belleza...Mas luego lavará su rostro reflejandose en los charcos...o hará siembra de sus pasos al caminar por la hierba.De negro se viste…

Olive Green

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Five years ago—or maybe ten—I clipped an article containing a quote that has haunted and inspired me ever since, and tacked it to my wall. Describing the success of diplomats from nearly ninety nations to convene in Oslo, Norway, and agree on the wording

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 15

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The Fourth Defenestration took place in September of that year, and it became an instant internet sensation. Mostly because of the fall from great heights into an enormous pile of haufen mist, arranged by a bunch of henchmen pals of Boris and Vladimir

Cleaning Man

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The Zone is a garden of skyscrapers. Every building is a model.

I'm Never Going Home

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After the ship stopped shaking, the angry flashes of warning lights discontinued, a few people could be heard sobbing or whispering prayers.

As Poetry Month Ends, Prosaic Types Get Their Turn

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“I’m going,” O’Bannon-Krim says with exasperation as she throws trinkets such as Dylan Thomas beer coozies and Edna St. Vincent Millay hair scrunchies into a cardboard box.

Australia (from slushpilemag.com)

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Now Ninalee gets up from the table. She starts to put some snacks in a bag for Janny and Benjie, and some storybooks in there too, to read to them in the park: books about trains, mostly, and there’s one with a bus and one with a car...

Hungry

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

The Sound of Human Lives

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The room smelled of an old rank basement. Boys and girls of all ages crowded the stage. The room was dark with only a few lights that hung from above keeping the crowd dark and silhouetting Chris on drums.

A Man Dies

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The spirit smiled and held out his hand, the light in the room magnified and he brushed past the books and the thoughts still hanging in the small alcove, " You are ready now.

In Our America

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If I floated about this coffee cafe,Like a spirit, just watching.In this room of framed fake memories,A room of ambient light, marketing to the masses,(It works; it gets 'em in the doors.)If I floated, I'd seeThese people sitting—eating, drinking, sipping, typing,…

What Kiss

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The women were increasing their writing in the restroom. I asked you later why women only talk on restroom walls, and you said, why do men only talk on restroom walls? I told you as much as I could remember of what had been written.

The Assassination of Sadat

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Just beyond the corkscrew slide / the President of Egypt was bleeding to death