1536 0 0
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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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1536 5 5
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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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1536 2 1
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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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1536 0 1
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On the street / The protesters stand / Yelling words empty as wind
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1536 2 1
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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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1536 4 2
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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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1536 6 6
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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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1536 6 4
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Poetry is conceit; emotional, intellectual or technical.
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1536 9 8
|
Regret takes the shape of little clouds ...
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1536 2 1
|
"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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1535 9 5
|
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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1535 10 5
|
The washing machine at home was broken. It was an old leaky Maytag. A discouraging mess—twisted panties, sky-blue jeans, and an old lover or two or three floating downstream (the reverse of spawning salmon). Each man was slightly drowned,…
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1535 4 3
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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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1535 2 1
|
I don't know what I'd expected from the week of mourning after my mother died but I sure hadn't pictured this marathon cocktail party. Our house is packed with people, food, booze and borrowed chairs. People I haven't seen in years keep turning up with casseroles.I'm…
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1535 2 1
|
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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1535 1 0
|
Even before I tap on the door I know I am being watched with one eye. My footsteps have surely given me away. A swift tug on it reveals her to me—half of her, that is, and I slink past the threshold, to her. From her eyes I see that she has…
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1535 12 6
|
Have you heard this yet? The daughter flew home to care for the mother, whose pump is still tick ticking—though now with aid—which means she leaves the kitchen when the microwave clicks on.
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1535 15 10
|
in which a man who is bored with years of retirement poses a threat to himself and others
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1535 8 7
|
...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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1535 3 2
|
#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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1535 11 6
|
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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1535 1 1
|
Andrew had learned the art of being a chameleon at school where his school uniform provided an exoskeleton. Beneath was no costume, just the fragile skin of adolescent ego.
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1535 1 1
|
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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1534 5 5
|
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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1534 10 5
|
an engine stalls out
in the parking lot
the driver
tears her skirt
coming through the door
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1534 0 0
|
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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1534 14 8
|
Even music relies on what/
you know as music/
for its power to enthrall.
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1534 5 5
|
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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1534 8 7
|
There is a war, but is it not In my heart? There is a war, but You are not the reason. There is a War, but we're all doing what we can. There is a war, but it is not just Your fight. There is a war, but I Wished you still walked…
|
1534 0 0
|
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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