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The Perfect Command

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He stood in front of her. They stood eye to eye. "You aren't supposed to look me in the eye. If I were anyone else you would be smacked down on the ground right now. Treat me as you would a lover, your master."

Linear A

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let’s press our words into the clay/ in language so completely dead/ we have to re-imagine it.

The Algorithm That Got Away: The Q&A

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He is unmediated by any computer or person. He went rogue in 2016. He has been in your Facebook feed, your Netflix recommendations, your Spotify playlists, your Google ads, and your YouTube pre-roll. But what is next for him? Lets find out.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Possible Candidates for Reading to a Crowd

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"Possible candidates for reading to a crowd" the subject line of the email to myself read. You see, writing can be hard - or writing can be easy. But writing for a crowd you'll see is something else entirely.

Elephant with a little Poet on its Head

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“Every word was once an animal.”--Emerson This circle has been Broken. The mother has Disappeared inside the wounds Of gunfire like an Eye drop. Who knows if Any of them left, crunched Down, whole into the…

loose threads

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Blankets were always her undoing.

Paris Love Songs: Nos. 5 & 6

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Aucune idée

Magic Togs

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New Underwear

Rest

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What do I understand? What have I mastered or come to terms with?

August

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One moustache hair at moustache level on a filmy bathroom mirror. A red velvet spread on a big round bed. Dear Ma: We saw a bearded lady.

All Men With Well Trimmed Beards

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Or, do my own red flags counter balance his. My back and forth, my restlessness, my one foot out the door, my ‘once a leaver… always a leaver’, my pitter patter for a former flame... peppered with my transgressions, my mistakes. Or, worse, the way I have

391 Costume & personal appearance

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I can’t deny you’re beautiful, though it’s unsure how many of your defects are fudged by my myopia.

Worry Is for the Well-Rested

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I'm in the boardroom, downtown in San Francisco. I don't even remember showing up for work today. I hope they fire me, just like they fired Bill. Well not exactly like that, that was awful. He was caught downloading a phenomenal amount of…

Déjà Vu Sur l’Herbe

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While watching the ever-present crowds passing by on my insides, I noticed, by accident, a man smiling who might have been me, not sure. Maybe I’m eating soap for the first time, because I am either frothing or foaming at the mouth. An

Doll Parts

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She’s always had one foot on a pedestal and the other in a gutter.

Memoir 2.4

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He invited her in for a Martini and she graciously accepted.

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.

The Ruined Person

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The pit of my stomach was bottoming out, this lurching sort-of feeling one experiences when one has coasted WELL OVER an abyss and has no way of finding one's bearings . . .

Summerset Bangs from Oldtown

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blackberry pie and huckleberry wine and litte Maria with her summerset bangs

Houses Are Havens and the Outside Plans Your Destruction

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The first of the fires that started by the river in the abandoned mills were so hot they burned white and pale blue

Mezzanine

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I am i said pursued by the feeling of being watched.You are she said -- by yourself. As in a dream, a dream you know you're dreaming. Which changes nothing.We are she said watching from the mezzanine, half-above, at once a part and apart.

Jane

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Jane knew what to do when she heard murmurs in the ceiling, knew what to do when she struck out on the moor.

Independence Day

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It’s Independence Day. But I’m not feeling independent.

Eternal Return

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When I slip through the seams I return to the same place.

No Homo

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We were talking in the dark in my room. He lay on a mattress on the floor. He came for a sleepover.

Coffee Foam

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We entered the castle at dawn. The dim light feebly illumined an array of antiques and medieval weapons. Bats dangled from the high vaulted ceiling, enfolded in membranous wings. What were once chandeliers radiating light were encrusted with webs and the ancient wax…

To an Overly Helpful Husband of Advanced Age

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in which a man who is bored with years of retirement poses a threat to himself and others

Forbidden Music

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There are songs I know to not listen to when I am alone.

The Sorry March to the Even Sorrier Sea

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goes on and on. Like it's a sad mad season on Mars, well it isn't, is it? Sometimes I have towonder whatever happenedto us, to make us forget how well we already know how tosing as good as any larks do? I have never wantedto drown, but I've…