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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.

Spitwads

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Two types coexist- the sanguine/ and exsanguinated./ My skin is cool/ and pale as moonlight

The Stairway (Short Story Excerpt)

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Leaves clouded the air and piled in great brown heaps like rotted snow on the old Maine road, disturbed for the first time in months by a lone, black SUV. It plowed its way slowly across the asphalt, the black surface cracked and hoary with years of neglect, past…

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…

Souvenir Des Choses du Passé

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Let's say maybe you're in a place your mind has never left, and let's say maybe it's Mississippi, and let's say maybe it's summer with kudzu throbbing green all around you, and let's say maybe she's a Sagittarius girl, standing in that driveway with her young breasts…

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

Cleaning Man

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

If You Want To Work At Club Arseni

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I hev my girls shave.

Shorty

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“They’re not gonna shoot him?” Rick cried.

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.

Hungry

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

Life After Death

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If opposites attract, that might explain it, Doreen and I. Conjugally blissed through thick and thin. Forty some odd years. Since June of sixty five.

The Dry World

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drunkards indulge, addicts abuse

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).

SYCAMORE STREET MORNING

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"S- E- X -- ever heard of it?"

Living Alone

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This morning as I stepped out of the shower I was hit with a panicked fit in which it became urgent that I rid my flesh of each drop of water that burdened it. Not quite like the feeling of being…

The Story You Wanted

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For I would draw a diagramTo signify the things I amBut I think you know--Todd Rundgren The door was opened before me. I know that's not a good way to start out on an adventure, but it is what happened to me. I didn't see any beckoning light, I felt a crazy urge, like…

Every Time a Bell Rings

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I could feel the old house skulking in the shadows. In the basement I used to play in the dark, shine a flashlight on the angular black widows creeping in the corners, feed them ants and silverfish and flies with the wings pulled off so the web wouldn’

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...

She Called My Poem Nice

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“There is no future in art, you will not change lives with flowery words. Please don’t rock the boat”

The wooden man: 12 fragments for Easter

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The wooden man came to her in a cloud in a vision in a dream in a story. When he spoke, his tongue clacked against his teeth.——As soon as she woke up, she knew the wooden man was in her belly. She felt heavy with him, fatigued. All she wanted to eat was…

Assiduity Five

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. . . my situation.

Harvest

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

Santa Breaks Bad

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It was bound to happen. Even celebrities can only take so much. The constant comparisons to Christ (people still think He was born in December), assumptions that he was anti-Semite or anti-Islam, and accusations from PETA, now ad litem for…

A Day At The Beach

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Rothko and Stella loved the beach. To Jalapeno it was just one big litter box and for her it held no great appeal. She sprawled sunbathing on the dashboard lifting a lid occasionally to watch Lauren riding a wave. The dogs delirious with freedom romped and chased tight…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 11

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Many weddings took place at the foot of the Astronomical Clock Tower. One every hour, on the hour. It turned out these were set-up photo shoots for things like men’s cologne, brocade bridal gowns, and smoked carp. At night we wandered around the many

Master of Puppets

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“There’s enough food to last here a week.” Ferdinand assured, as a dingy wooden cabin came into view. They were on foot now. He’d insisted on forcing the car into a ravine, using a heavy rock and the last of the gasoline to drive it into a heap of rusted

IT BURNS

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“Again,” Danny said, and I hit him with everything I had until I was out of breath and it was his turn to hit me. We did this three, four, five days in a row, took the weekend to admire our bruises and heal a little, and then on Monday we were back up th

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.

Working Girls

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In the summer when it's light out later it's my nature to linger a couple of hours in the park after work, just standing around watching the Downtown Divas working the corner, offering themselves to each male driver who stops for the light and I always joke with them about…