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Esmée

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Esmée sat alone at a table on the terrace at Marina Jack’s in Sarasota. She had been there ten minutes and no waitress had approached her.

What's that on your glasses?

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The shit just doesn't want to come off.

Myself Today

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Suddenly I'm not feeling it anymore. / Poetry has become insufficient. / I can't do it like I used to.

A THOUSAND PARROTS

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  The parrots woke Eddie up. That and Rocker snoring in the twin bed. A thousand parrots flying over the motel? They squawked, God how they…

Spittoon (w.c.55)

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“I’m pregnant,” he says...

Building Houses Out of Words

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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 …

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 34

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—Now that’s a hell-of-a-painting, Frank, he said. Those colors are engaged in warfare. How the hell did you do that?

Dignity Village, Portland

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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…

Road Work '92

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This is how she does it: Forward………… ...Reverse..........…….....Forward..........……...Reverse

Sleeping late in Cahuita, Costa Rica

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The light of day is screaming, shook by the calls of howler monkeys, their low roar hanging in the salt, in the black sand riding the wind, as Playa Negra outstretches its infinite arms.

Aurora Borealis

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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.

Global Arms

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~(+)~

Style Shifts

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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…

Tales from the fictionaut Fave Side

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Into the bowl I put Tales from the Crypt, The Far Side and an episode of Numbers. Wisked for a moment, then let the dough rise.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 40

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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.

Thanking Harry

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At a candlelit table near the back of the restaurant, Jack and Lois greeted the waiter as he delivered their drinks, a diet coke for him, and for her, a vodka and cranberry. He apologized for the slow bar service and promised to return in a moment to take their…

There's a Pube in My Coffee

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Connor didn't bother to wait in the line of busy professionals, opting to cut in front of the sign that announced "Line Forms At Other End."

Snow

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She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

String Money

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I said hey man, how you doin’? He looked up and nodded but his shades flashed and I couldn’t see his eyes.

In The Wake

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Any form of exertion would defile what we are trying to do

On Clearance

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She clutched her fat rolls and tugged on a pant leg. "I'm so embarrassed! You caught me on a bad day!"

Mr. Pickle and Mr. Peet

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We got a sandwich at Mr. Pickle's, but they cut the sandwich in the plastic. Plastic wrap.

You're Breathing My Relapse

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I was an alcoholic for ten years, starting in my early twenties and continuing into my thirties. Then finally, after many attempts, I got myself straightened out. My son's birth finally did it for me. It wasn't like a switch flipped in the delivery room…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 10

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But the restaurants put pig in every little dish. You couldn't eat there without encountering some portion of pig. It was in everything, including the cabbage. Who puts pig in the cabbage? I'm asking you. And in the dumplings too. For God's sake, give it

The Winter's Too Warm for Bears to Sleep

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The winter’s too warm for the bears to sleep, and they get up in the middle of the night with insomnia and wander about the streets in their pajamas, knocking over garbage cans, looking for a midnight snack of some kind. They’re getting kind o

I Ask You, Erin Burnett...is it fair?

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In the privacy of a booth?

Fine, she said

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A rope is cleaner, he explains with a straight face. He's calmed by the visual.

#32: Deep in Structures of Awareness (Structured Poem)

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In ashen hills of yonder

To All the Sisters on My iPod

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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.

In my day...

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In my day, you could buy a polythene bag of cigarette butts for 5p. And everyone had a proper haircut.In my day, plumbers gave free vasectomies whilst reciting patriotic poems. And all the buses were red.In my day, there was always more than enough sex to go round, with…