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Accident Assurance

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They found your athymic neck/clipped like a bag of Skittles/and your lifeblood left a Rorschach test on the dash/in which they saw the future/and their own exits/(straight ahead and to the right).

Collectors

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what do you collect?

Gentleman Freddy

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Roanne, just out of jail, went to cop. That is, she went to beg fat little Freddy the dopeman to front her once more. She'd have to fuck Freddy, of course, but, well, maybe he'd wait until after this time. Likely not…

Sestina for a Seeker of the Prism's Course

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Did Isaac see, his mirror in the fronds Of apple-orbs that let their ripeness stay No more than supplication of the wands The sweet tornados in one drizzle's wings betray? The tree that greets them is not ruled by iron bands Whose light's lines were…

STROBE

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No excerpts for you. Next!

Session

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Maybe it might be best to, you know, have less frequent meetings.

Meeting for a Drink

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But the profligate are blameless now Those who conflate sex and love the way dumber animals mistake heat for light have moved freely back to some primal zone where if I’m felt to be contradictory to the surroundings it’s because I wanted t

Cut-offs

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The sauce is you

You May Telephone From Here

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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…

At the Brooks Brothers Hip Hop Summit

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I pat my pocket to make sure everything’s in order; a Starbucks blueberry scone to sustain me, a $50 Brooks Brothers gift card from my in-laws, and my “piece”–a fully-charged BlackBerry handheld device.

Veined and Green

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Where we’ve penned heart shaped question marks, seeds sprouting bowed heads, a congregation of confused supplicants.

And so, like a kind of molting

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So for now, let the snow fall, but let it fall gently, each flake as a soft piano note

The Sorry March to the Even Sorrier Sea

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goes on and on. Like it's a sad mad season on Mars, well it isn't, is it? Sometimes I have towonder whatever happenedto us, to make us forget how well we already know how tosing as good as any larks do? I have never wantedto drown, but I've…

Head Over Feet.

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And if I lived a thousand lives...

The Evacuation Queue

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The ticking must have gone on for an hour before Kathy realized it wasn't a clock. When the line finally moved, the rhythm changed. When the queue stopped again, she glanced behind her and noticed a woman in torn jeans and a filthy sweater tapping a heel on the…

Paper White

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With each step, that cold hand steals ever upward.

The Birthday Jump

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I remember the first & only time I parachuted it was 1964 my 16th birthday a rite of passage if you will from the old man an aerospace engineer & former WWII B24 bomber pilot I practice-jumped from oil barrels taught how to fall back then when the time came…

Downtown Milwaukee

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Downtown Milwaukee My feet are exposed, never been out in public even out here— …

Citadel

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Last night we slept with books in the bed.

The Real Story Behind The Lipstick On Obama's Shirt

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The lipstick on your collar walked up the steps and through the front door, without a key. Her smile was hypnotically red and bountiful. The guards standing around didn't dare frisk her for weapons, her lips were weapon enough.

A Change in Plan

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Times were tough back then. Just a few jobs. This was in the late thirties. It's the story of how Albert hooked up with Iris. Their unlikely meeting took place when they met out on the Highway 61 right-of-way just outside of Natchez, Mississippi, each trying to hitch…

Moments in the Community of Women

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It’s the small stuff. Always. A conversation with a stranger, brief yet so connected it overwhelms you. These encounters can move me beyond my reality, little reminders that, if you just crack the window a little, something very special can blow in.

16 Rules to help you become a Writer

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Get comfortable with criticism

Mean Time

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between

The Stairway (Short Story Excerpt)

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Leaves clouded the air and piled in great brown heaps like rotted snow on the old Maine road, disturbed for the first time in months by a lone, black SUV. It plowed its way slowly across the asphalt, the black surface cracked and hoary with years of neglect, past…

Iowa

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

Misunderstood, Meet Cynical.

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The blaring scream from my alarm clock suffices as my wake-up call. It disrupts me from my dream state that I so rarely get the privilege to experience any more. I've always loathed that alarm clock, so I turn it off in the most sensibly aggressive manner I know how: just…

The Judge's Wife Part 9

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Suddenly something clicked.

Song of Unself

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nothing suffices as harbor / but a permit to claw at every yawing chasm

Man and Dirt

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Wherever you decide to grow Please remember to ask the dirt ‘Am I still dust’