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Laidlaw

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There were too many laws but not enough of the kinds she wanted. She wished for the right to go shopping. Then taste rather than disposable income or access to finance could distinguish people.

Aluminum Canoe

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"Don't stab me with that," says John.

Sold 2 Books Though

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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.

1940 What I Wanted

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But this ache wouldn't leave me.

The Hunger of the Waxing Moon

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I took advantage of a free period this afternoon to nap. When I awoke, I tasted blood. My tongue was swollen. I checked myself in the mirror and saw twin punctures on my lower lip with pinpricks of blood on each. I winked at my reflection and lifted my li

Bad Ideas I've Had

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Not all ideas are bad, just mine.

The Other Side of the Wall

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I’m glad they put the wall up. When it gets a little humid around here, I can smell those damn people.

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.

Not Enough Sin To Go Around

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Inevitability: it's what's for dinner.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 43

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—Have you ever fired a gun?

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #3

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It was a dire and dun-colored year when groupies wept and autograph seekers put down their pens.

Dry Tuna

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"If you don't like it then leave!" Sally screamed.

I Will Not Be That Woman

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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 …

Stones

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The manicured lawn rolls down either side of the knoll, punctuated with flat granite plaques, the occasional bouquet of cut flowers, a smattering of faded eight-inch American flags.

Dinner with Someone Who Fucks Someone Else

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say no / to me / and devastate me / and I will take it / as god's will / to drown me / in a vat / of my own / entrails

55 words #5

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"...,beautiful, yet neutral, an oversimplistic reading of the people we meet."

The Young Woman Swimming

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She stepped inlike ice alonecould save hershe dived,slicing the wavewith her body her fresh pony tailsubmergedlike a silk scarfthen swam moving thewater awaylike whirlpoolscould hold her buoyantly save her from the headachewhispering wordsThey had been there all…

Hollywood Forever

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Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone crack open an Old Bushmill’s and offer John Huston a pull.

Flash Before Your Eyes

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It was the dead of winter. I took my father's shotgun from his closet. He kept it wrapped up in one of those khaki-colored gun tote bags that had a zipper running the whole length of the gun. It was a 16-gauge, single action shotgun. Anyone could tell wha

Tabula Rasa

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When I was younger, I tried very hard to be myself, but it never worked. I'd close my eyes, wait a beat, open them and slowly bring them into focus. This is the new me, the only me. Never worked, not once. It could only last a minute or two, so I…

15 Restatements

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I arrange 15 restatements of how lovely you are forward then backward, horizontally then vertically then along the diagonals.

In Search of Vince’s Quinces

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Beautiful, he thinks, as he taps the ash of his cigarette over the balcony, but this is not good enough.

Dear Friend

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Dear Friend: As a visitor to Wonderland in the past, you are truly among our most treasured friends. It is the enthusiasm for whimsy such as yours that spurs us to continue to provide perplexing chaos for which we are so widely esteemed, the better to

Ferdinand Gets Married

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You have the right to be happy

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?

Taking Leave

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A walled city doesn’t let you out any more easily that it has let you in earlier.

Digging

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I came to a field where, scattered around, were quite a few men digging holes

Dreamtime

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The problem with drinking gin in the desert is that eventually there is no more gin but the desert is still there.

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,…

Half Awake in a Fake Empire

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Cooking dinner for one in a city that isn’t my home. A beautiful city that I’m slowly losing interest in, just as I become a local. In a tiny apartment set in the most realistic part of town, I’ve turned the music up loud to drown out my thoughts.