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Physics 101

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The cellar smelled like an aroused muskrat.

The Invitation

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The poet could not speak of himself but only of the gradations leading toward him and away. ~ Mark Strand

Mauthausen

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I was feeling a bit introspective. I was busy in my own mind assembling the history of the place and getting ready for the visit. I was naturally not someone who would cluster up with a bunch of people I had just met and had arrived to participate in this

Zapruder Film

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But there it was, amid the “junk” set to be thrown out with the rest of his childhood, opened accidentally to the page of his Indiana Jones Action Journal about his winter formal when he was sixteen.

Xmas Letter 2015

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Another year has flown, crashed to the ground, and convulsed to its death in a final match with the meaninglessness of existence. Decided to try my luck as a Walmart greeter this year but the apomorphine treatment made me break out in hives and I reacted…

Behind the Ear

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She grew tired of waiting for her husband to give her a flower so she picked one for herself.

cuneus + forma

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the warnings we fear are the selfsame ones of ourselves of our vertical need to be first to the heights redoubling its intractable charm of production— our inheritance.

Global Arms - 2

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While serving in government, she plotted to change it.

Seeds of Summer

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Excerpt

The Kill

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I kill because I can’t stop. I kill because I can.

Into The Night

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Under a conspiratorial moon… the shovel my silent partner… organ-less torso to the worms.

The Keratin Experience

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Lisa Pottratz's mother illustrated fashion for Lord & Taylor from home in the 1970s. There is more to say about fertility, naming, and diabetes.

Penny

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I saw a woman stop, Stoop on the platform To pick up a penny, And wondered what it was worth To her, that disruption, That eddy in the flow of the day's rush. One hint of brightness, A tiny windfall And something changed. Lucky heads…

68 & Riverside

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Martin met Siena in the elevator, carrying two brown bags of groceries. She asked him to press the button for floor eight. As they rose, Martin fixed his eyes on the display as it changed numbers: G, 2, 3… and so on.

Beside the Pool at Noon

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he flies away past the green explosion, into the azure sky

Warning! Please Read this Before Adopting a Pet

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One evening I came home late from work to find my wife drinking white Zinfandel by the fireplace in the living room and reading Wallace Stevens poems out loud to the dog, curled at her feet.

Reportage 1

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But oh my goodness ladies and gentlemen, out from under the vast reeking field, under this generation another generation has been rising and they are bursting up out of the soil of corpses they were boiling under there all along and they are bursting up o

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.

Errol

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He prided himself on being not menacing like a bear.

Untitled Haiku from Japanese Game Show by JANEY SMITH

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It's a haiku. It's its own snippet.

October Day Salute

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The duty of a student can be summed up in a sentence To benefit the race of man with thoughtful independence

Woman in a Film Running to Save Her Love

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If she does not get to him in time, / all is lost.

Universal

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For the sake of convenience, we must assume that everything ugly is evil. Lightning rejuvenates. Sulfur preserves. The obvious solution is dismemberment. The ghost appears to Ludwig; “How can you destroy my creation?”

Hogging the Lady

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She was not the usual member of the band, not the girl nextdoor, not next to any door, not a regular housekeeper or woman. She was a ditch digger, a pied, circular piper, a mouse hugger.

annah la Javanese. Gauguin

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Her feet are raised upon an embroidered green pillow and she sits naked in a blue velvet chair. Red earrings dangling from her ears, while a red monkey sits at her feet with one leg extended. She is exotic. A powder blue on her lips and at her navel,

Just Wondrin'

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Ever had the occasion to wake up look at your watch and see it's five-thirty in the morning — after sleeping on the couch all night? Ever then gone to take a leak, trudged down the hall, cracked your bedroom door to check on your wife and found a portly, balding man…

Haiku For Birthdays

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(On Tuesday...)

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On Tuesday, he wears his suit to the cafe. Of course they'll let him pay! Of course. Under the table, his wife accepts their wadded bills.

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.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 5: In Which Lymph Nodes Are Involved

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Astrid did not smoke. Astrid did not drink. Astrid was not overweight. Astrid did not live a sedentary lifestyle; her whole life, aside from shopping, was working out. Astrid had no history of breast cancer or other female cancers in her family. Astrid di