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Dancing With the Monster

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It comes to me at night, the monster. I don't even realize it's in the room until I hear it breathing behind me. It reaches out its hands and places them on my shoulders. Its fingers are furry and soft, but strong. They grasp the muscles on either side of my neck, and I…

April, Thirteen

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There is a roofer straddling part of our house, pushing shingles off of our roof with the edge of a shovel. …. I've thought seriously, at times, about becoming a nurse. Seeing your mother in a hospital bed, hooked up to a tube, more than one, too…

The Rat, His Treadwheel

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The rat had been informed, assured, cajoled in order to gain his assent—duly lied to, in other words, by the researchers with not one tear of remorse, with no smudge or smear of conscience . . .

Because we cannot know

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Because we cannot know, we keep walking, keep getting up each morning, feeding the cat, drinking coffee. Because we cannot know I'm drinking coffee that morning in Thailand, not on the beach but just off, because there is only one spot where you can get real coffee,…

children

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today on the bus/ a man in his fifties/ smiled at a baby/

Downland Ballad I :Photo-disintegration

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Like a distant memory of past expectations I wander through past journeys, delineations chew on the fresh air like a discontented Wordsworth now free, free to roam where I will..

Suite

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but most times/ it’s just improvisation// with phrases of unknown origin/ swirling in my head

Cube of Boxes

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...he was suddenly and hazily relieved that he had something in Persepolis and blue agave plants to talk to her about.

At the Brooks Brothers Hip Hop Summit

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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.

The Tourists

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He thought of his field trip from the previous year, of Prague’s museums, statues, squares, architecture, restaurants, and various modes of transport. The town offered none of these and surely no cinema, no crowds of people, not even an old church.

Dream World

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I don't mind being dead. It's ok. Really. I've discovered a whole new way of being based on non-being. What else can you do? I like being invisible. I like groaning and rattling chains. I used to be a writer. Still am. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that…

Figures in Disquieting Landscapes

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Tentacles hold fast to the small/ thrashing thing they believe is true// which, devoured, once crushed/ completely still, turns into shit,

Movie Conference, 1963

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Suddenly the producer, Irving, tosses a new idea into the discussion, an idea for a possible film. Then the writer, Herbert, does the talking. He performs, in fact, puts on a one-man show. The idea! The idea! It's…

The Last Warrior

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His wings, like tiny shoots, grew a season in an instant. The pain was gone now. He rose up as effortlessly as centaurs run, as angels fly. "I will sing your name as my brother among my brothers," the Seraph promised. Kladius watched the beasts below

Vision and Conviction in San Lorenzo

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"They don't know how this formed or how it got to where it is today. What we do know is that it's not going to last forever." Said Edward McCabe to his daughter who hadn't learned to talk but communicated with her father through her agreement or disagreem

Time Change in Florida #2

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Time Change in Florida #2 Sapped, yes. But not finished. Not yet.So what if I mostly live in my head?Who says I have to be out running aroundimproving body income outgo technical savvy? The dizzy awe of a Southwestern …

I Am Quantum

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He had a lean build, except, remarkably, his midsection was perfectly barrel-like. As if he kept an alien lifeform in his belly, cultivated by years of Pabst and Yuengling transfusions.

Put Your Trust in God

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God is my stomach.

The Mujahideen

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Eighteen-year-old Svetlana Kabalevsky was now the widow of the poet Dmetri Kabalevsky, soon to be another widow-whore on the Moscow highway.

Too Much Information

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He couldn’t dredge up a single memory about the sex.

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…

Grannies

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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…

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...

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…

Things Like This

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I'm an older guy. She is still quite young. I tell her I may be too old but she giggles and tells me that she did the research and it said because there is snow on the roof doesn't mean no fire's in the stove. She proved it. Things like this. We excite ourselves,…

Coyote Agonistes

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Wile E. Coyote? A junkie strung out on bunk dope.

The Morning

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

3 Poems Of Broken Hands And Lonely Drones

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another lonely drone holding still

The Birthday Jump

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I remember the first & only time I parachuted it was 1964 my 16th birthday a rite of passage if you will from the old man an aerospace engineer & former WWII B24 bomber pilot I practice-jumped from oil barrels taught how to fall back then when the time came…

concession to the shapes of hunger

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(no one need fear timidity in our tastes― / we like trying new things, no matter our hastes!)