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Iowa

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"It was John-Darren who once told me that he felt sorry for women."

CURTAINS

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She also castrated her cat. All by herself...with her Swiss Army Knife. And not with the blade either.

benedictus

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he wanders the house/ crying for the hairless tomcat/ (gone for the night/ on an overnight job).

Keeping watch

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The machines are alive but she is not. The pads keep her face from being irritated but my mind isn't so lucky."Let me GO!" she cries....at least that's what I hear. They are waiting for permission for her to go. Eager hesitation best describes the tense…

Lost Splendors

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“I have a theory,” she said on their first date, which was at an Indian restaurant where the music was a lovely singsong but the chef seemed enraged as he clapped a ball of dough between his hands, then threw it into the flames. And her date, whom she…

The Street Singer

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The Street singer gathers up his coins and counts to a hundred before The last string stops vibrating

Red and Lavendar Silk

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Swatches of Chinese silk in vivid red and lavender fly through the air. My granddaughter in her mid-thirties reaches for the cloth. I see in her mirror a shape forming; a slim, gray haired woman with a spring in her step. I pause to admire my reflection and pass over the…

The Bird King's Eggs

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1The Bird King's eggs are subatomic particles created serendipitously by a sneeze in a quantum physicist's dream.Occupying a space between existence and nothingness, reason and madness, broccoli and…

Bike Gangs Show Sensitive Side With "Baiku"

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

Uncle Ned

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There was this old guy named Ned. He swept floors. No one knew much about him. He'd been around for years sweeping the concrete floors of the hangar-sized buildings that housed the major mechanical service departments at an old amusement park.

Haiku for Jogging

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Haiku for Jogging

Wait

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I'm not dying. What is it called if you think you might have Hypochondria but you really don't? I'm worried that's what I have. Is it cold in here? Or is it me, dying?

Beer Pong With the Nobel Prize Winners

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Alcohol and American writers have always had a connection–about 70 percent of American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature could be considered heavy drinkers if not more.

The Old Man and The Lawyer

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As the jughead turned with a humph the old man muttered, "what a jerk." The jughead spun around and glared at the young black man and said, "Did you say that?" The old man laughed, raised his hand, looked up at the jughead and said, "I did." The jughead t

Eating Dim Sum with Di

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Lindsey and I are both talking loudly about things we would never talk about in real life, under the impression that this is all somehow instructional for Di. But I think it's really more about us. Di gives us an excuse to talk like two people unjustifiab

My Hot Rod and the Redhead

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I think the Air Force Colonel must have known, from the flushed looks on our faces, that I had just fucked his daughter in a roadside patch of ragweed on the way to their house somewhere outside Danville. I remember looking back and forth between him and

Thumbing For a Ride

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Here comes my speed dealer he's riding shotgun in the open

Chasing the “Z” words

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It ain't the steak, it's the sizzle.

Late Night / Early Morning

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It's 2am. The wind is moving at speed, whipping gently the tree branches, and their leaves rustle simultaneously to create a audible sound, like hands flipping through sheets of paper, or that feeling you get on your fingertips when going across a textured surface. I'm…

Awaiting the End of Time

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The alphabets will disappear.

Until Again

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Methuselah. That’s what they call him, the regulars that ride my train. Other things too, but Methuselah is the one that sticks in my mind. It seems to fit. It’s not as cruel.

The Dotards

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We played synthetic derivative punk. We used Donald Trump tweets as lyrics.

Speck in the Thrall of Cosmic Forces

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Fear the air and fear the fire./ Fear the land and fear the water./ Creation is out to get you, speck,

The Time Traveler

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My work is not that sexy and glamorous kind of time travel that you see in the movies with Deloreans and phone booths.

The Woodsman

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In winter The Woods sleeps and the Woodsman comes. He collects the dead wood and makes coal. He nurses the injured animals and prepares the dying. He distributes the snow and regulates the temperature. In his fur hat…

Abraham

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I came late to sunrise. The hills were lit / with goats.

Vitamin D

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I caught her a-feasting with her eyes and smilin' at that Jesus- haired Waffle House cook, Dennis Roy, again and I said, “Merlene, my tiny kitty-kat, they's no reason to carry no torch for him ‘cause he may not be with us very long ‘cause, if you notice, they's no…

Me and the Dowagers by the Five and Dime

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It's been twenty years since you left. I should call it a day.Even the Obeah woman said as much. But I don't listen. Instead I sit with old and proper ethnic widows in black, waiting for your return. One of them translates my story for the…

Wavering Faith

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Grady Quail wondered why God didn't just have another son

Sweet Jane

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