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Secret Lives of Cell Phones

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

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eleven seconds of infamy / brought to you by Glenfidditch /who the hell filmed this?

Modern Car Problems

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Sitting in the car, John had the urge to kill himself.

Lavender, a Liberal

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Lavender, a Liberal Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit, named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced. Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl, who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at…

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.

The Year Of Kahoutek

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My father had a terrific argument with his wife, my stepmother, a flaming harridan with a voice like hydrochloric acid, and insisted on driving me back home to California.

Haying

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It is not unusual for farmers to see the future before it’s begun—but I am not speaking here only of the need to hope but more. . . .

a few of my favorite beacons of hope and tenderness

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life is a lucky thing, bountiful among the drugs and flowers

Double or Nothing

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Wednesdays were humiliating. Third graders had to bring in twenty-five cents for class dues. If you forgot, the teacher would write your name on the board and it would stay there until you settled your debt. My family could afford the weekly quarter; the problem was…

Playground in the Fire

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People questioned my motives when I became a smokejumper again. They said I had a death wish, or that somehow by going into battle against the big Pacific Northwest forest fires, I was still trying to put out the flames of the burning car in which my sons Jake (age…

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.

Lire's Children, After the Swans

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our eyes misted white as goatskin

bric a brac road

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bric a brac road

The Hero in Heart of Darkness

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Remember the equatorial heat, the flies,/ the lurking hum and scream of jungle,/ the squalor? Remember the functionary.

Pocket Poems Scratched on Paper Scraps at Work

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Too many sparrows flit and twitter here./ Let’s go inside. The sky is far too big/ and the sun bears down on us like searchlights.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 4

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

Emotion is a Weather in a Basket of Clouds

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If you can imagine a ghost taking a shower then you can imagine the kind of emotion I have in mind.

Becoming

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Ego bereft of consistency Betrays a heart hungering to toll. Unable to trust its will Or harbor imaginary gods, It gains a hold melding into a role whose proven viability Can give convincing cover To buy time to fabricate An identity that feels unique, Yet…

Summer's End

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sunshine

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

White Noise

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I don't like listening to the radio anymore. Nothing is clearer than a live voice with something to say. Give me a big field with no one around but the birds and I will send the bees away from me. I will deny all bugs to buzz.

Filter

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The brain taints everything it brings to us/ with its limited apparatus, its precepts,// all the things it thinks it knows.

She Frog

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She had a face like a frog: wide mouth, prominent eyes – and when she touched him, her fingers felt clammy on his skin.

Catching Mitt For Sadness

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He stops smiling and only says he loves me when prompted, as if asking me to pass the salt for his inner peace as it tastes too bland.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 60

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That is a pretty damning statement.

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…

As If Not Breathing Could Save him

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She turned him down again. Said it was her insomnia. She was so tired, she said, she had to work in the morning, and why couldn't he understand that? She rolled over facing away from him. He sat up in bed, thinking. When was the last time? Three months ago? Four? He…

Capt. Love's Last Command (poem)

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The old man is dead, body propped in its cart like the dead El Cid strapped on his horse by Jimena to save Valencia, and yet...

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…

Magdalena

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Magdalena followed the receding tide, her tiny feet leaving no rumors in the hard sand. She gathered only the most beautiful shells and presented them to her waiting Abuela. Her grandmother told her that the only things that a woman truly owns are her dreams. She told her…