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Black Sweater

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A small poem about incipient insanity

All the Young Angel Heads

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I don't think you understand. A sad boy doesn't just die inside, slowly, he becomes withdrawn from certain types of lovely youthful reasoning out loud, accustomed to feeling what is expected, graded, just to be allowed to survive another…

Nathaniel

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sometimes i have to be in the other room just so i can breathe easy away from you.

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.3

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They followed the crow up a hill, where lights were at its brightest below. The teens stood frozen in time.

The Breakup -- I was Always Yours, You Were Never Mine

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One cold winter's day she met what she thought was the love of her life. He had everything going for him but his age. You see the sweet young thing was a lot younger than her. One might say that she had lived many lives before he had been born.

Game Night

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Randy stood in the alley behind Krasnowski Construction with a loaded gun shoved down the front of his pants. His friend Todd was inside, unloading the safe. And when Todd walked out the door, Randy was going to shoot him in the face.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 18

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She was dressed to seduce one man: Francesco Martinelli.

Lover's Spat

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“You haven’t been listening, have you.”

The Cost of Love

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I was, so I was told, the product of much hard work and a lot of invasive procedures. Initially, I'm sure my parents were making love, but then came the slog, the repeated failed attempts at getting one of mother's millions of eggs fertilized. Those tadpoles just couldn't…

Saguaro Poem

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I thought I would write a poemAbout a saguaro trying to please God The saguaro would spend a hundred yearsGrowing an arm and offering flowers in its fist —God barely notices. The saguaro flowers a crown for God.More arms. God then loses his patience…

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas

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In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

The Street to Here

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poem

Imparting Shots

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He knows why I’m here, so he stalls, talking about the coffee, about how it’s a new dark blend from a little shop in The Village, about how he loves the flavor, so rich, but just because a coffee is dark doesn’t mean it’s stronger, that, in fact, it’s the

Urgent Care

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When Carol complained about a pain in her back, Frank didn't think much about it. Her back—especially her shoulders—hurt most of the time he'd known her, almost fifteen years, from sitting in front of a computer all day. It was an old story. “But …

Lyz & Duncan

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This morning, my band mates discussed their relationship deal breakers.

(4) Caution

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“You shouldn’t have gone inside,” he said, after she told him what had happened. “I know that’s what you’re used to doing here, with people we know. But he’s not from around here. Don’t go back over there, okay?”

Five Million Yen: Chapter 4

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There was no one there, but the smell of cooked bacon permeated the hall, triggering borborygmus in his stomach. He loved that word, but not his empty stomach.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 46

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This artist has a wonderful sense of line and color. Abstract is not my métier, but I appreciate the art behind this painting. It helps to copy it. You sleep with it for a time and, like a woman, you learn her passions and taboos.

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…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 19

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But when the KGB went out the castle window, what a surprise was waiting for them. Because we had lined the pit with a huge dung heap, and camouflaged it with a colored pink wrapping as if it were feathers, just like Cristo had done. We wrapped the shit p

Bike Gangs Show Sensitive Side With "Baiku"

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Some guys ride hills up and down, Then stop to terrorize small towns.

Sweet Jane

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I feel so glamorous when I talk to Andy on the phone

Muse

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This liberated you/ to grind me hard/ on the dance floor

Noodle

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Our painter man was killed by a bunch of snotty kids who were making fun of him. A gun went off. What is a noodle to do? He wasn't sitting alone in his world, anymore. Where was his famous straw hat? His trusty pipe? He desperately needed to smoke…

What 68 Years on Planet Earth Have Taught Me

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Life is not always quixotic.

Darryl, The Biography

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"I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be. And so I'm on my way home."--Bob Dylan I don't owe you anything. If I'm a recluse what does it have to do with you? I have the right to be poor. Some things cannot be explained away by letters that…

Assiduity Ten

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I'm using a 16mm motion picture camera with sound on film, equipped with a magazine holding six hundred feet, giving me approximately fifteen minutes of continuous shooting. Uzma has changed her cloths again. She's dressed for working in the garden, wearing a white…

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.5 - c.2

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Azure was overwhelmed by white everywhere. Her eyes lost focus when she looked at the colors of Miri’s outfit, even her clothes.

Song of Unself

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nothing suffices as harbor / but a permit to claw at every yawing chasm

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.4 - c.3

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Azure felt tired of all her problems remain unresolved, and she felt this was a good opportunity to get one out of the way.