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The French Horn Behind Me

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And right there beside me That single wobbling Snail-like trail of my heavy French Horn case

GRACE IN SUFFERING

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What I did I wouldn't call criminal, just stupid. Even my judge, after so many court appointments, didn't understand what had happened. And there's a reason I got out on illegal sentencing but, either way, I paid the better part of a year for it all. I don't want to tell…

The Breakup

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Don’t break things, I add. And he looks at me like I’ve broken everything else.

Wallflower

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It was one of those weekday mornings in early spring when Marjorie and I could wander from chapel to chapter house with only security guards for company.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 4

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He arrived at Bellevue hospital in a straight jacket bound to a gurney.

On and On

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The world is crazy that way— two people close to me gone around the same time and I'm supposed to go on and on like those dryers and smile still and do my schoolin' still ...

The Weather in Paradise

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I immediately felt anxious guilt, being the one responsible for opening the way for infection.

Airman

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Tent City has gone quiet. There is a deadline. I heard it on the news. I’ve never thought about the word before. How in this place it means what it means.

Love Stories

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I've got an appointment to see my shrink next Wednesday. She's pretty sharp. Not bad looking, either.

She Rose From the Weeds

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you drove by the woman standing on the verge the woman with the shoulders of a long distance swimmer and you told yourself her story: she'd slept in the wiregrass she carries…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 10

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Sounds terrific, but are there any strings attached?

Assiduity Seventeen

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In the darkness, as I awaken, an orange glowing 3:45 greets me . . .

Christmas

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First of all, there was no snow. I seem to remember that. And there was no Christmas tree in the house.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 52

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In his dreamlike state the pianist turned into a preying mantis.

Christmas Email from an Aging Wicked Stepmother

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Your stepsisters send their love. All three are still on the wagon.

About Face

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I'll strip off the skin down to the begin again.

The Secret of Healers and Monsters

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If there was a single constant in the boy’s life, it was that he had always thrown knives. In his youth he had thrown them only in his mind . . .

Happy Is a Poem

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no need to write it if you/ live it, conscious of the light, the/ shape, the sound, the taste, and shadow.

Things I Wish I'd Said to M--

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Treasure that first love. And that first heartbreak. Don’t let it be the last thing.

From Solitas To Libramentum

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Look around you, see what you have built.

Father Dunne's School for Wayward Boys #1

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A young girl wavering between celibacy and punk mother-lust despair came to visit us each night

Awaiting the End of Time

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The alphabets will disappear.

MUSE

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The bar was dark and a little dirty, and that suited Splinker's mood just fine.

What 68 Years on Planet Earth Have Taught Me

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Life is not always quixotic.

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.

Uniquely Portland

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He saw his mother standing over him, and he called out to her for help, but she only laughed and faded into the paper towel dispenser.

The Amber Sea

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There is no life here, only a bleak slab of frozen desert and a sorrowful wind that calls for me to venture out.

Saved

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I woke up pissed off—like that feeling you get when you take a long nap in the afternoon. Except instead of being on a couch or a bed, I was trapped in a mashed-up Honda on I-75.

Boxes

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His voice isn't familiar but his words are. He says he knows we haven't spoken in years and apologizes for it. I can hear him pacing on the other end of the line, tapping things and then a shriek of glass shattering. Really, I tell him, no need to…

Rock, Roll, et al.

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She looks for the obit, can't find. Over and over, looks. Nothing. Nothing except something touching her shoulder. Follow me. Corridors, doors, along and along, no time to notice that this last is the stage door — she was so suddenly there in the blare and…