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55 words #5

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

Happy Birthday to Me

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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.

Sleeping Apes and Washing Dishes: What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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Eat blueberries every day and you'll live to be a 92 year old mogul. Really.

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.

August 1976 Jefferson City, MISSOURI

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"We gotta find a way to get high!" "Shh! My parents will hear you Tommy! Their bed is right above us." …

The Judge's Wife Part 8

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—You're convinced I'm crazy. I'm convinced you're incompetent.

Pain

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My pain is a black pearl hidden in a clean shell.

“The Confession of the Sorcerer of Darkness”

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A dark and mysterious account of an ancient traveler seeking arcane literature, and the miserable results to him after he receives what he sought.

Tiger Milk ( Part 3)

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"Soviet Mandelstam rose like Christ from the Nightmare, Rises from the gulag, sunrise on the page."

Tissue

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A tissue, she was saying - hand me a tissue. Her seat belt was locked and she was rocking back and forth in it cinching wrinkles into her favorite blue silk blouse. I can't remember her wearing anything else. Her hands were gesturing - on and on- an endless loop…

Marks in the Sand (Poetry-Rhythm)

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I am only ever What you seem to be Without the leverage Of sweet reality

Is This Seat Taken?

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A single woman should regard every train ride as an opportunity, I once read in one of those “How to Find A Boyfriend” books. “When boarding the train, don't take the first available seat,“ the author advised. “Walk through all the cars…

Kissing In a Warm Car

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Then I did the same to you, inhaling your scent which was one thing at your hairline and another at your collarbone.

Here Comes The Pope!

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In the words of that great philosopher Hunter S. Thompson, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Where's Waldo?

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Over his usual ham sandwich and skim milk for lunch Uncle Waldo used to always say, “Going out in the dead of night without a flashlight is dangerous.” But I knew what I was doing. After dark, I'd slip out and sneaker on down the path to take a dip in a…

Fragment from a Paper Story

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While Leif was still very young, his emotions were very easy to read, for they appeared on his parchment coloured skin, named in his mother's writing. When he was seventeen, Leif fell in love. She was a pretty maid, one of the college servants who kept his…

Books

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'Like poems,’ I said she paused and nodded her black mop.

This Story Has No Title

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They watch her, scald her skin with hot eyes whose stares run up and down her body like lice.

How to Cheer Up a Sad Song

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It's one of the most difficult problems of aesthetic philosophy: What do we mean when we say that a song is sad? None of the big names--Aristotle, Kant, Croce–Benedetto, not Jim–come close to answering it.

Cold/Warm

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I wear boots over bare legs feigning ignorance To the coming storms, the snow the ice the cold

Passings

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Perhaps my grandparents, Fred and Lela, when they were growing up....

Mobiles

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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.

Frenchie at the Fair

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Frenchie hustled waffle irons.

Dry Tuna

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

Baby Teak

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Baby Teak can access Wikipedia by rubbing two xylophone mallets together.

The Body in the Other Room

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I couldn’t parse the grammar of her body nor decode the secret softness of her neck.

Strawberry Swirl

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Keisha selected a strawberry swirl cupcake from the waiter's tray, so pretty, from the hottest, coolest, newest patisserie. Moist strawberrylishious cake, swirly pink frosting, sprinkles. Keisha was one lucky lady, scoring a bizdev gig at recession-proof…

Never Said

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We're at the Park Diner. My dad Tommie is sitting across from me. He looks haggard, tired. His skin is pasty and washed-out. He's not talking, so I'm not talking either, but it doesn't matter because it's hanging there between us.Cancer.Motherfucker.“Don't look so…

It is Easier Than You Think To Ride A Train: The Q & A

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Q:What made you want to be a person who rides a train? A:As soon as I learned there was such a thing, I wanted to be one.

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 . . .