1515 4 5
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After my mother died, my father shipped me to my uncle's. He hadn't told me she was dying, so he could just mourn alone.Lena lived next door, Italian, my age -- which was ten -- beautiful. She was watched by goons in black suits. Her parents owned a restaurant. Across the…
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1515 7 4
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"I’ve always wanted to write a novel. Like Catch-22, something off-beat that would start by word-of-mouth, you know, and become an underground classic."
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1515 5 1
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They come in my room without knocking and I'm nekkid.
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1515 5 4
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1515 2 0
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He also had OCD. He had to kick every dog he met. Johnny killed a lot of dogs and was bitten by many others. He was a cruel bastard.
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1515 9 6
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Earlier that morning a tree in the yard had filled with starlings, and on the way home after lunch, the sky held planes that looked like starlings, floating together.
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1515 9 9
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No one has touched me for a long, long time and I believe that is why I am dying. This is a notion that is new to me but it has persisted over the last few weeks and I believe I finally have apprehended the truth. There was a time, I remember all too well,…
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1514 1 1
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He did many things for love: Once he placed his tongue in his boyfriend’s nostril during sex, because he seemed to have read in the internet that this was a “thing” among the younger of their social class...
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1514 5 3
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We write poetry, but are unable to calm ourselves. We need more men of the world (like you) who are not too much amazed by experience. Men who can lead a dual life. Who have sexuality but remain detached, whole. The bodily, the sensual, easy give and ta
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1514 2 2
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For two days his parents had been fighting, and they would tell him to tell the other one something every morning that was supposed to be some sort of slight at their personal failings, which had been inflamed by their twenty years of marriage.
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1514 3 3
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he wanders the house/ crying for the hairless tomcat/ (gone for the night/ on an overnight job).
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1514 8 7
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There's something in the space youare tonight that's for me asweet presence in my own life,and so like any othercoward I write a poemin vain. It will never beseen as itself by you, butpossibly be mistakenfor an open window. Somewill definitely call itfurniture, some will…
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1514 3 2
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Lama’s mother is dead. She died when Lama was just outgrowing her ballet tutus. When Lama talks about it, it is with the air of one who picks honeysuckle over jasmine. It gives sunshine, she says, to graves. Our epitaphs are so mechanical otherwise.
Un
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1514 1 2
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A possum sits on a fence. The fence is downtown in a not-very-big town. Hard to say about possums and fences; this is not the first possum to sit on a fence. Once, during a suburban backyard party a possum sat on a fence and observed. Before long he could walk more…
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1514 10 3
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It ain't the steak, it's the sizzle.
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1513 7 7
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It's become sort of a habit now when Elsie's husband is away on business two or three times a month that we take the afternoon off and drive nine miles across the river to Marginalia, Arkansas and the Moonglow Motel with its red, neon vacancy sign and although to some, two…
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1513 5 4
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He switches to quantum mechanics
and starts tinkering with his sleeve
memorizing a theorem
he'd figure out
if he had the time
for a deep breath,
he takes a deep breath.
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1513 7 6
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All these poets with their wrinkled hands full of freshly poured over poems are driving me into the dried wheat fields like a black block of crows. Offering a collectable cigarette, they light the damned thing with another hand-rolled poem,…
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1513 10 8
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like the Bible in / Mauritania, like a mouse in a vial of ammonia, / like a retired coal miner on vacation in the Alps
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1513 1 1
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Wherever you decide to grow
Please remember to ask the dirt
‘Am I still dust’
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1513 2 0
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A dream that seems
Impossible
When fresh blood soaks the ground
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1513 3 2
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The moment I was told of your passing...
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1513 0 0
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Being the baby in a family forces a focused outlook on life. Not necessarily profound, not even wry, but a perspective that pushes for two things - recognition, and to be in on whatever is going on.
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1513 0 0
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It turned out that my brother's newly acquired building in downtown Pasadena, was what developers called a "see-through" building. That meant you could look from one side of the building all the way through to the other side, without obstruction. In oth
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1513 0 0
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It happens. Someone blows something off, someone else forgives it, then tat for tit and verse visa, and you’re missing someone’s wedding because you thought it was Thursday and they didn’t mention it to you anywy, but you’re still BFF and don’t
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1513 3 1
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Though his heart aches
his melody seems to flow
It creeps into the dreams
of all in slumber in the valley below
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1513 5 4
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If you are a family member or friend of a person incarcerated in a correctional facility...
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1513 13 8
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The stars align against us. Lines of force/
collaborate to push us off the edge/
into the dark abyss we’ve joked about.
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1513 1 1
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Shirley stubbed her cigarillo out on a dead chunk of honeycomb.
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1513 4 5
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“Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."- W.C. Fields Around the next corner is a dark green door a dark…
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