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Resource Management

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’m sure they have their/ cleverest working on it, though.

Examination of Faith (And the Big Bang)

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The marble, it's just there. I can't explain how it got there (or when), all I know is that everything is in that marble. By "everything," I mean every thing. Your breakfast? It's there.

Unsent

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this is where we end -- the exorbitant eye of forgotten days.

And so, like a kind of molting

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So for now, let the snow fall, but let it fall gently, each flake as a soft piano note

The Morning

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Early in the morning I wanted to send you something for when you wake;

Untitled Haiku from Japanese Game Show by JANEY SMITH

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It's a haiku. It's its own snippet.

A New York Moment

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Harvey C. Hamby was drunk. Usually he held his liquor well, but tonight he was off his form. Stumbling over an ottoman, he landed on the floor in a sodden sprawl. As he fell, his left foot shot out behind him and socked Glenda Steinberg in…

The Continuous Yearning of Walter Rush

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Every morning when he wakes, he lies in bed and waits for one of his toes to twitch or spasm; the moment he feels one of them thrust forward, he gains courage to test his legs. He grimaces either way: one more day of walking, one more day until loss, one more trip to the…

Mom at Night

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Mom stayed up all night again Tending to her papers Pushing them around Trying to make order of the debts, the dreams and the obligations She couldn't get the columns to add up, So she shuffled them around some more and Rearranged the piles …

Absinthe Drinking in a Bar in Paris

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Half past six; already, through the gloom Saltwater flourish sifts from wharfs that ply Their play like girls that haunt the midnight's womb, As far it seems as walks of Barbary. Within the bar, French waitresses and sots Play dice with time awhile and rub…

Alice White Loves Me Because

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She loves you when your words leave her dirty, semi-transparent, at times, overexposed.

CARTOGRAPHY

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Your brother is not really blind.

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…

I Wish This Was Fiction

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The convalescent home's common areas are surprisingly well-appointed, given the neighborhood, which makes his actual living quarters that much more dismaying. Poorly lit, dusty, stifling, the room reeks of socks worn for weeks on end. My nostrils burn, and my eyes…

Vesper

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. . . how a body calls in the dark. . .

Reasons to Live (RtL) = right to left

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6. to register for the draft

Water Hitting Water.

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Jenny was certain nobody saw her when she took the slinky shirt from her father's store. It was blue with buttons shaped like cherries, the fabric light as air. She balled it up in her hand. Her father owned a chain of boutiques called Body Electric. The racks were…

Hunting Season

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A mundane endeavor depicted as a quest. Try it, you'll like it!

Aisle Seven

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A young boy, breathing heavily from running, stopped at her feet, barely able to speak,

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…

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.

Take Back the Night

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A woman who is, say, a culinary arts champion or an heiress devoted to literature such as Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman) or Peggy Guggenheim might be able to turn me on, turn me out, turn me around.

The Infinite Wheel, Hold That Taxi

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Scientists have discovered what I already did once on dope way back in the Sixties. There are so many other earths out there that they are almost infinite. Now in our other lives we have to shuttle from planet to planet reading our poems. And o

Modern Teleology

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little curly moustaches

Dashboard Jesus

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When I first started this, a few months ago, I was timid about looking people in the eye.

Playing Boggle with Lowell's Mind

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lewd sinew swine

In an Unfamiliar Restaurant.

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I find myself in an unfamiliar restaurant, its cuisine an uncomfortable pastiche of Croatian, Burmese, Jamaican and leftovers of long ago Sunday dinners in a small New England town.

Not Good Enough

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So where does that leave me, Roscoe Loomis wondered, dismounting his silver, aluminum steed in his sweat-soaked, spandex outfit, and, clearing the saliva from his beard he walked over, checked and smiled, learning that the bike track's timing unit showed it was Roscoe's…

A Bad Year

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It's been a bad year, People dying. Some too close to home, Some too far away. I cry down to you, In your casket, and think you might sit up. You were not sick You went in just a moment, Looking stunning and alive. Not…

The Bowery Scene (Memoir, 1981; edited by Charlotte Curtis)

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It is easy to look out on the Bowery and say, "There are the bums." Encountering one, however, even one who asks to "bum a quarter" or tells you he's "on the bum" the word "bum" slips away in one's mind...