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Recipe for the Broken

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This poem first appeared in “Walt’s Corner” of The Long Islander, founded by Walt Whitman in 1838.

Laughing All The Way To The 2020 Election

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After President Trump was elected, my first impulse was to spend the next four years cowering under the bed, whimpering.While I knew that I needed to keep track of what our new commander in chief was up to, watching the news made me too angry and too sad and just too…

Event Particle (9)

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leaves, starlings and other words fall into thickets of orange or green grasses or tendrils or snakes

My Uncle's Last Day in Hospice

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In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …

Sorry, Charlie

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Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

Table Talk

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Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl.

The Wind Is Going To Take You

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Before the railroad tracks are blown off by the wind, the wall tiles morph to trace 34th Streetwhile a silver balloon emerges from the end of the tunnel. A child’s hand reaches out for the gleam and she, the woman in a black-dress with a mandarin collar,

Whither Butter Sculpture?

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Would we have been satisfied with a humble butter sculpture of a cow in 1960? Puh-lease! Would Parisians of the Impressionist era swoon over a big-eyed child picture?

Open Wounds

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Where the skin had grazed, shredded by the coarse gravel to form scabs, fascinated Jack. It reminded him of his youth and his own grazes, scratches and stitches. As a boy he imagined scabs were rough foundations of igneous rock, blood like lava pouring th

Assiduity Twenty One

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Blue skies greet us as we exit the forest . . .

Wings

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He knows I talk to angels, what he would call angels. I don’t talk to him.

Parsing We

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An excellent plan. Just like old times.

Sensation

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She could see him doing these things but she could not hear him.

It's Part of the Plan

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...and on the eighth day

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."

The Washing of the Quilts

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Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

As the Wine Keeps Flowing

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My blood has turned to flour I've been in Babylon too long My heart was singed by fire But it's drowning in my song We raised a prayer to Mary We had to take our share We took our places in the ferry But we didn't pay the fare And we don't know…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 23

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After the Tokyo experience, Frank and Michiko decided that when she went on extended tours, Frank would accompany her.

A New Chapter to Song of Solomon: A Poem

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My beloved lets me crawl into bed and put my feet on him since his skin is warm and hot like a fire roaring from within his soft flesh.

Tongues

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I feel his hand on my face, feel it brush past my lips, and I taste my sister's blood.

A Straw Grasp

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My wife, Sheila, inadvertently clicked my e-mail address, too, when she sent her reply back to him and I read her poet friend's message that her love opened the window of his heart and she replied that his words were knocks that opened the door to her being, then I stood…

Need food for family

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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?”

Peanut Time

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A peanut, who knoweth

Beautiful Are the Feet: Part One

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Naomi hadn't expected them to come in such a big box. When the UPS man tried to hand it to her, she told him there must be some mistake, but then he pointed to her name¾NAOMI BROWN¾right there on the top. When she finally got off all that tape, she had another…

One Day We Grow Wings

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Cicadas shed their skin as they grow, leaving crisp hollowed out remains on tree trunks, fence posts, and the undersides of upturned leaves. Tommy and I would collect them in the early morning and stick them to our clothes like brooches. I used to like Tommy,…

Helpless

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She stiffens and blusters and roars Not like a storm, Not like a lion. Like a badger, caught in the steel jaws of a trap.

Triolet

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the magic is our making

Straight to Jimbo

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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.

Going Back in Time: Song

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If we go back in time We are living in tents If we go back in time We are living in caves We are fighting over rivers We are fighting over fields Near the soft edges of slime If we go back in time Nothing would have us And we had t

Bunking off

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He looked like a black paper doorway pasted onto a painting of summer.