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Esmeralda

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Being an uncredited bonus composition, written in the sublimest access of divine afflatus this poet believes his lyric verse has ever known. “In olden times, dark was not counted fair”: Those were the words, I think, of some old poet. …

A taste of competition

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We called him Mickey Habanero, because he could fill his mouth with the hottest food imaginable, the kind packed with the sort of heat that would melt the gums from the teeth of a novice, all without taking a drink of milk or anything else that would otherwise soothe the…

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

Betrayal

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My brother Herb married his high school sweetheart right after completing college. This was a girl named Beryl, whom he'd met originally in Mr. Reinert's marching band at York High School in Elmhurst. I remember one day in particular in the middle of the

Fulton Flapper

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The Italian was late. She was supposed to come into the store, meet him in the back, and arrange to take the last of his liquor.

Sayōnara

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He painted a woman on them, identical to the woman that kneeled by his bed.

The Dog's Familiar

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The county sent two crews, one to get Mr. Meyers, the old shut-in, tall and affable, but quiet and bent, like a crooked coat rack with a porkpie atop, the other for his dog, an english setter whom he shadowed like a familiar. I say he was the familiar and

More Of My Dark Job History

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In my 14 to 15 year old life in the late 50s I worked as a clean-up boy in the neighborhood butcher shop up on 5th. Ave.,

Things Get Fuzzy

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We can’t just bomb Berlin or Dresden,/ Nagasaki or Hanoi, to make things safe

Rock and Sushi

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If I remember him at all it’s because I decided not to flunk him so he could graduate. I had this theory that teachers should be bound by the same oath as doctors, First, do no harm.

Mercury Unbound - 5

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As the music concludes, I'm finally in control of my emotions . . .

First Rain of the New Year

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Compartments trickle together/ in light diffuse and unreliable./ Fortify yourself against the day.

Burned

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They called him “Albert, the Human Armadillo,” and he was. Rows of hard scales ran down the course of his chest, and he was studied and biopsied by doctor after doctor. “Psoriasis,” they said. “Or, eczema.” They prescribed ointments and oils that left him

A Philadelphia Story

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In the summer of 1963 I went to Philadelphia to study with a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Please Help Support My Attempts at Being Funny

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You can tell your doctor the truth Even if no one else will stop and listen He or she may have a balm for it To help make it go away Or at least go into remission Remission is the staging area for Lies Corporate and otherwise We don’t have

Aisle Seven

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

Skin and Bones

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She lay there, skin and bones, unable to speak. Little did we know those were our last moments togethter. How cruel for her, to want to share a lifetime of thoughts and feelings in those waning moments only to be robbed of the chance. My brother and I…

Memoir 2.4

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

Ineluctable

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I attended the burial of our affair when I found the notebook-maybe it should be called her diary-she had foolishly forgotten, leaving it on the deck of my beach house where she stayed while I was on that short trip to Chicago and I was numbed at first, unsure how to…

The Exhaustion of Dreams

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I like it best when I wake up And the wild rain of dreaming ends.

Spoke

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Laurel's new bike is powder blue, with silver tassels on the handle bars. Jenny's mouth actually waters at the sight of it, as though it were a fresh loaf of bread or a perfect, juicy orange. “You can ride it if you want,” Laurel…

Un Americano

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His eyes are wide then narrow and brown. Hers are gray then they look away, toward the back door where a delivery driver has walked in, carrying a tray. Nothing is going to happen today.

Messages from Upstate

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My eyes are wide open. I look like a graphic novel. My world is black and white. I’m poorly drawn. All sounds have an exclamation point.

In Knucklebones, This Is What We Keep

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Outreach the ostrich

This Time

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This time the mountain climber does not attain the summit.

Eve in the House of Mirrors: 13 fragments

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1. On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Eve woke to find herself transformed into a gigantic chess piece made of zeros and ones.2. Eve gazed so long at her smartphone that she found herself falling into it.3. She fell for a time that may have been short or long or…

In Real Time

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We are the same shits/ we were in the Bronze Age

The Sentence

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Two women are escorted to the desert, where they are shackled to the ground. Who are they, what have the done, and will they survive?

Mean Time

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between

A Quiet Noise

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the sun is quiet like the mountains, the birds except for their wings