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Vanishing Point

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the two become one where/ all things end,

A Next Step

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The first night I met her we slow danced to George Strait songs for most of the evening and when we took a break, our talking went warm and well as we sat eating hot dogs and sipping beers until she dropped a couple of bombs, first, telling me she was married and then, that…

Deer People

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There was no provision for keeping the post on the door, but I did not have the fingernails to pry it off.

The letter.

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I am useless. A freak. Different. They all hate me now. All except you, of course. You will never leave me. Never. I'd kill them all if I could. Every single one. But twenty-four, that's a lot even for me. I'm so sick of the cliques; the special groups and hastily strung…

What Keeps Us Awake

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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…

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 Sound Of...

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What if Everything I have been doing Hasn’t been heard By anyone?

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.

Girl in 'Nam (Part 2)

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A life in NYC was one I always dreamed of but I found myself turning into a bitter, sarcastic person who was losing the ability to see the silver lining in just about anything.

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?”

Chair and Umbrella, $25

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If white t-shirts are only an SPF of 8, she couldn’t even imagine what a white nylon-mesh umbrella on this godforsaken beach might be in terms of protection.

Illinois Route 3

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If this road could answer I would ask her what it is like to follow the path of the rippleshimmery river for too many miles through the slowly ghosting towns and the corncovered landscapes of the dying Midwest

The Fact of the Matter

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Jeanne and I were married for eight years. I never knew her.

Peanut Time

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A peanut, who knoweth

Worn

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The shirts hanging by the back veranda serve as our memorial to them.

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.

Settled

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Zusman snored on the sofa as Motel gathered his belongings in the dark. He moved quietly as had become his custom in the mornings. Initially he had tried not to wake his nephew on his way to work in the…

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,

The Tale Of Lys

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Even the old medicine woman seemed to grin with a perverted sort of understanding when she opened the door to find Lys waiting outside. She was comfortable nowhere and ready to flee at any moment.

MASS OF TANGLES

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I leapt up to retaliate when the clang of a distant door quieted my retesance. Shit, why am I so popular? I guess it was my turn to be thrown around like the guy in the Hotdog suit on the corner... Don't shoot the "Hotdog" guy... Please, please don't

Joe's Sniff Shack

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Joe's, always smelling of cherry chapstick or the breeze that comes up from subway grates, used to service some of the finest dupes in town.

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?

Sit Down, Here.

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“The window is a much better place to read,” she said.I wasn't aware she was talking to me, at first. In my typical manner, I was thinking about far off possibilities and realities completely detached from my own. Yet, here she was, a far off…

Blackouts

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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…

Parsing We

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An excellent plan. Just like old times.

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.

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…

Of Dreams that Dance and Die, Before the Drums

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At eight o' clock: as, drawn by many bells, The patchwork congregation lopes and stalks, To churches far from serenade of shells To storms, we leave behind the windblown walks, And sails of youth, to glide through liquid hells, A temporal…

Silent Night

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The church of the self.