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The young man pulls out his wallet, grabs a couple of bills and stops short of handing them to the bedraggled man. “So how do I know you’re not going to go out and buy some crack with this money?”
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153521
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I think we could be twins, our hands hitching us together like paper dolls, our parkas making blobby round balloon shapes as outlines for our bodies. I imagine each of us holding onto someone else, and the line continuing on from there until we have a cha
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153521
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I remember sitting there on the first unfinished rooftop, watching you building houses out of words. You hammered in grammar and punctuation; you said these things needed to be hammered in by hand. You drove the long straight exclamation …
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153542
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The first and easiest reason was that he never hit me. Well, if he never hit me, then how could it possibly be abuse? Never mind the threats to stab me in the neck. He was only angry. He really didn't mean that. Never mind he restrained me, or cornered me
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153566
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He thought she should have come with an owner’s manual
So he would know how to operate the equipment
It was definitely more than he bargained for
Or knew how to handle
She was too hot
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153564
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Poetry is conceit; emotional, intellectual or technical.
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1535116
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I suppose it was inevitable, This crashing of souls, This recognition of possibility to create. If we were younger, We would make a baby, The ultimate act of faith. Now it has to be something else, Nothing to force a track with night feedings, …
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153521
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"That zit on your forehead just won't go away, will it, sweetie?" she adds as she brushes her daughter's bangs downward.
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1535119
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The Poisoning I used to call my dad Serpico. Thirty years on the police force, and though a respected officer, he never fit in. He never had beers with the guys at the end of a shift or engaged in the more lewd locker room talk. None of the other cops were privy to which…
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153495
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I recalled the one night stand I'd had with the girl one balmy summer night in Minneapolis. We lay on my bed in the moonlight, and I touched the nipples of her tiny breasts with the thumb and pinkie of one hand.
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153410
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On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…
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153443
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It was a wake-up call. A sign that I needed to stop and ask if I was making wise and sensible life choices.
My iPod was full.
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153455
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Style Shifts “Oh, yes, my cousin. We were rude boys until the armed gangs started to gather. Used to be we could pass a night driving, playing our songs, acting tough. Yeah. We'd mouth off, flash some teeth, spark some anger when we felt like it. We…
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153421
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Ben was dreaming of sex with Claudia. But, in his dream, he could hear Dan Arris calling his name and pounding on a door. The fear of Dan Arris was pushing out the delights of Claudia.
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153400
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Licking my wounds.
That's what my mother calls it. I'm not really sure what that means or if it's true. Sure, losing your boyfriend, apartment and job in a matter of months can drive someone to do something impulsive. Something crazy. But I've always b
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153420
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I can't believe it's Frankie, but there he is at a table on the far side, just in front of the big picture window. I hold the menu close to my face and peek again over the top, watching as he reaches under the white linen tablecloth to plant…
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15341510
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in which a man who is bored with years of retirement poses a threat to himself and others
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153455
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There’s someone in the audience who is immolating himself
Cutting his own leg over and over with a pen knife
And groaning: “Oh God, oh God”
And all I can think from up at the podium is
This guy must absolutely hate these poems
I am reading
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153485
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In the diffuse light of early morning you wear a sweat suit maybe and stand in front of a model-kitchen counter in a model-home kitchen
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153400
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Won't speak a word against 'em. Car trunk stunk like bad chicken long after, but I won't speak a word against 'em.
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153487
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...coming into that bone yard, you just hang a right, go on past La Fontaine, and take a left a bit further on. Jimbo's right up in there.
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153432
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#2 The Typewriter Inside You by Harmon Gentle—I found this one at a garage sale when I was 15. Intended as a manual for sharpening one's typing skills, by the third chapter it became obvious that Mr. Gentle's sanity had slipped, and that rather than mastering the…
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1534119
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A cheap pocket knife was the only sharp I carried in my backpack and they allowed me that. The man with the pot tattoo on his neck said, “All of us here needs some type of knife. You gotta cut up your food. We don't…
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153411
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The Bird King is trapped behind the mirrors. Sometimes you'll see a hand, a wing, fluttering in a dark space. You may even see his breath, a pulse of mist in a corner of the glass. But don't ever smash his silvered prison. Don't ever let him out and into the world.*****O…
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153444
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A rope is cleaner,
he explains with a straight face.
He's calmed by the visual.
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153355
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Gnarly Berger was born in a guitar case in Istanbul. His mother was an Iranian singer from Israel accompanied by a Turkish santur player & a French guitarist (Gnarly's biological father) and into whose guitar case Gnarly entered this world, somewhat by accident,…
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1533105
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an engine stalls out
in the parking lot
the driver
tears her skirt
coming through the door
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153300
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Mother’s eyes stared outward in a trance, on her throne, visualizing the world Azure made. Though it was right before her, she could not reach it.
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1533148
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Even music relies on what/
you know as music/
for its power to enthrall.
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1533102
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