1403 2 1
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‘what’s the hassle kiddo, chopping meat is fun, come here and listen to the music of the chop, the sound of steel ripping through air, slicing through flesh and hitting wood, poetry I say’.
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1403 1 1
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Max sighed. Solving for x was boring, so mind numbingly boring that he didn't notice the flickering blue light hovering in his room. It crackled and popped, growing until a shimmering rectangle stretched from floor to ceiling.A hand pushed out from the rectangle, and a…
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"Soviet Mandelstam rose like Christ from the Nightmare,
Rises from the gulag, sunrise on the page."
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They were discussing reincarnation,
what animals they would come back as.
"I'd be a vole," Cranshaw said. Is a vole
even an animal? Connie asked.
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The four Grannies say, “GO!” and leap from the window. King's pickup is below, and he has lined the bed with his mother's throw pillows. Sundresses fly. Blue plastic diapers billow. They want cigarettes. I light their smokes with King's pearl-handled lighter as…
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and, once in a rare while,/
actual pearls.
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My stories are ramshackle; they lurch along in old sweaters with holes and missing buttons, drinking from mismatched cups and saucers.
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I was convinced that enemy bombers were on the way.
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the lightning horse you never mounted in your inherited dream~wetter than the oceans you never traversed~will you ever ride pure abandon?
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Not today. Even when the Isar rolls so cool and deep and I could wade and wade 'til sleep. Not today. When I have the tablets in a drawer in a box winking chalkily at me. Not today. When the church tower soars and it's bells toll out a seductive beat …
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And God said unto the oil can: “Thou art cursed above the cattle, and above every beast of the field. And deep the ground shalt thou go.”
“Mother,” said the oil can, “fucker!”
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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…
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“I'll have the Ribeye cooked medium rare,” says Bill, who looks over at Julia, blonde hair and disarming smile, and he thinks that she's not bad for a blind date. He doesn't like the way she butters her roll, however, and it agitates him that she spreads…
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We’ve already agreed on a date when Jack posts some new pictures of himself. I have to swallow. Hard. In four days Jack’s become twenty years older!
On Thursday, a boyish thirty-something was smiling at me from my PC. This Monday I find myself stari
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Happy Birthday to me.
It takes just a second on waking to remember,
It's June but it feels like December.
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Is this sought sea dream of the Arctic fox? The green below the circles of the white, above her eyes? On Formica tables where the woman smocks beneath glass borders of their vacant smiles, they pass by windows formulating styles,…
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They make you work
For your pizza in Italy
You have to slice it yourself
While wearing a gas mask
To ward off the cigarette smoke
From every neighboring table
While chasing away the
Mosquitos and the pigeons
The flies and the gypsy r
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Reading at Menlo Park Senior Center,
old people falling asleep leaning to the left in their chairs,
all in the same direction.
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It was one of those sweltering afternoons that San Diego endures only several times a summer. I'm riding on El Cajon Boulevard, with my friend John in his old Chevy pickup. John is a lifelong San Diego resident and fanatical Charger backer. He's talking up some…
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After becoming single at age 62, I joined an online dating site. After a year of perusing profiles and meeting men for coffee, staying single is starting to look better and better to me. But I've stayed on the site, in part for the pure enjoyment of…
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Names are forbidden here. So is apology.
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I. Europa How else to begin but with Gustave Holst's Mars--the gods waging war in romantic twilight as drumbeats and cannons blast swathes in the gloaming and glory awaits in the halls of black smoke. A visual perhaps:…
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He then spent his walk home to his single apartment spitting up various textures of red, combinations of cherry and blood mostly.
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a half-moon hung straight up and down
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I pat my pocket to make sure everything’s in order; a Starbucks blueberry scone to sustain me, a $50 Brooks Brothers gift card from my in-laws, and my “piece”–a fully-charged BlackBerry handheld device.
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While serving in government, she plotted to change it.
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He doesn't call, not even on her birthday. She doesn't mention it or complain. She knows she doesn't have it as bad as some, even in this privileged Triangle of North Carolina. She is white and pretty and belongs to what's left of the middle…
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A study found that in bat species noted for female monogamy male bats have small testes and big brains, while in species noted for female promiscuity males have testicles five times as big, but smaller brains.
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Artie Shaw gave Ava Gardner a reading list in preparation for their honeymoon that included The Brothers Karamazov, The Origin of the Species, Das Kapital and The Magic Mountain.
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I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…
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