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Shakedown Street

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The combined smells of ocean breeze, grilled cheese sandwiches, incense and sweat and burning herb that wafted over from Shakedown, along with windblown notes from tinny car speakers all rolled into a potent sensory cocktail he hadn’t tasted in far too l

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.

Privileged

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I could hide away in this tower But I am Rapunzel And I will let down my hair

Letter to John Berryman

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My dad was an Army Reservist stationed in the U.S.—New York and Texas—the bugler in his corps. He golfed on summer weekends at Hazeltine in the course of his career. I had seen houses water colored prettily within the lines on L.S.D., after noticing not

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

unsettling

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papaya over-ripe displayed on the half with spoons sticking out - ” very ripe, tastes good “ blue crabs cooked with lavender i was sniffing a spoonful when the chef came out

For My F-Fellow St-Stutterers

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Funny, funny stuff. She'll be here all week--be sure and tip your speech therapist!

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.5 - c.5

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Getting answers felt like it was not enough. Madam Mayweather wanted more. She wanted to hurt someone.

~switches and shade~

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  mis-placed       the change           she goes looking for.        her folks        missed another hour...          her worth-while spent wasting        the voice wouldn’t leave the leaves alone.

My Brother the Painter

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My father bouncing his leg to slow rock music with me on one knee, telling me I should keep a special place in my heart for my teeth, to remember where I lose them, on the playground like he did when he was my age, fighting a friend named Bobby-Joe. Or else I could lose…

The Sway

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When it was sticky cool at night, he'd pull her hair up off her neck and spin it like a pinwheel. “You could be anything," he would say. “You could be a preschool teacher.” She waited for him to add, “For dragons! For wallabees! For…

It Isn’t Personal. It’s Business

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because you pay/ for it to matter to me.

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...

I'm Dreaming of a Nihilistic Christmas

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The mind sparkles with Shakespeare. It's like hearing the rain fall. The world becomes silent and dark and the rain becomes snow and falls like snow and rests on the ground like snow and informs the mind with the values of heaven. A distant oboe pins its sympathies…

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. …

Context and Confessional Poetry

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I like babies and little kids, more than some people but goddamn, children's laughter out of nowhere (in the night, when you're not expecting it) is creepy. I don't like slugs smeared like nightmare goo on my summer-bare feet, I could do without them in …

everything moved in circles

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

Hardware Store Tour

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The Plaza had a chess-board floor, green wood booths, and the lights stayed up. I might be combining a memory of Fitzie's in Binghamton. The Plaza felt like a preppy soda fountain with beer.

A Rough Dance

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A young woman is seated center stage. She is pretty, dressed in a short nightgown. She sits nervously, her body tense and expectant.

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.4

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Everyone kept up with Nemo until the scent led them to the edge of the city. The elders sniffed the ground and found Satoshi’s scent into the stoned woods.

SNOW JOB

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One sneaker in the middle of the A-Plus Pawn lot...

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.7 - c.1

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Mayumi stepped back and watched the hand slowly slide along, guiding her to follow it. Her head turned until she saw Emi across from her.

Haiku for Jogging

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Haiku for Jogging

Honoring Heritage

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salmon sits gentler on my palate

Snow

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She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

Betrayal

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Betrayal of course is the great human crime. As I found out when . . . .

The Road to Ensenada

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One of the men leaned over and spit long and dark next to where the dog lay curled. He said something about the senora, and the other men laughed.

My Date with Edgar Allen Poe

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Now, if someone is tellin' you that she had a date with Edgar Allen Poe, you might be tempted to say, "Hey, sister, what kind of drugs you be doin' for the last two days?" But I swear on my Aunt Boo's chastity belt that's what went down and with my…

Tarzan on Mars

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Tarzan peers through a telescope. Earth, in its aphelion, is approximately 40 million miles away. A star. He lives alone. He is old. He worries about going blind. Mars is cold. But there are ways to keep warm. He reads poetry. He lets out bloodcurdling…

Transcription of Audio: Meeting with Miss Jewel Eppinette

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No one has touched me for a long, long time and I believe that is why I am dying. This is a notion that is new to me but it has persisted over the last few weeks and I believe I finally have apprehended the truth. There was a time, I remember all too well, when I might…