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Summer

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for my father I want to memorize this our time together — what we did without her there to tell me You wouldn't want this life you're not cut out for it — and me the child…

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.

77 Words Sparked by Insomnia

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Mice dreams are a reality ...

Black Sweater

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A small poem about incipient insanity

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…

THUNDERSNOW

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I know who done it. Them goddamn taters. I walked around the yard and started picking up pieces of the camaro, wondering if, from above, they’d laid the parts out into some kinda cult symbols or something.

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…

Big Barf Theory

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We’re lucky it/ was chunky spew,

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.

1740: My 7th Great-grandfather

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a half-moon hung straight up and down

Secret Lives of Cell Phones

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...collapse of the human world. Go, cell phones!

Lover's Spat

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

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.

Party at my Place

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My vagina invites you to a party Whenever your time frees up Or now, Now would be better

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

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My first love was a woman of principle. Never deny your man was her motto.

(Platter of) Figs and Oranges (Set to a Warped Organ Fanfare from too Long Ago)

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Lonely kids only want this thing to go away and stay away. To not be lonely anymore. The lonely, uncool Kids have learned to be absolutely Still in the moment. Who does this fall to? They Haven't read enough Vonnegut for your liking? David Foster…

How the Big Man Reigned

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I am fair game that will be hunted and eaten, cutting its edge with Satan's tears from six eyes.

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

My Father Teaches Me To Drink Straight Shots

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of Jim Beam when I was maybe fifteen. Or anyway old enough to admire the lesson.

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.

Picnic Jugs

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The car was a two-tone black and white Chevy...

The Gentleman on the Train

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The gentleman is discreet, but his eyes wander from his paper at intervals as we travel together from London to Manchester. We happen to be on the same train and he happens to be sitting opposite me. I happen to be a size 34C.

whistle stop

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good bye suckers

Customer Service Circa 2017

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Quantum transport rearranges grandma.

Rex edits an essay about relationships

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...it's about female needs, Rex.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 18

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She was dressed to seduce one man: Francesco Martinelli.

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…

Sole Music

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You're on the good side of thirty, probably with a little girl or boy of your own sleeping at home, and here you are dragnetting at three in the morning. We're all broken, and the scars we trade are all that remains of our fragile, once complex lives.