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Saturdays with Satan: Satan Falls in Love

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“I'm in love,” Satan said to me cheerily. I could tell he was in a good mood. He was whistling as he came up my sidewalk. There was a spring in his step. He carried his mail tucked under his arm.“I'm in love,” he said …

You May Be

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beautiful, but you don't own beauty. You may be sexy, but you don't own desire. You may be smart, but you don't own wisdom. You may be good and kind, but you don't own love. You may like trees, but you don't own the forest. You may like to…

Water, Not Fire

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I'll still want the blinds open and the lights on, to see the papier-mache of our flesh fighting death away to the century mark, even if you only want to live until a ripe eighty-two.

soften the lazy honey

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Pots of wine crowding the forehead until irrational thought crowds out the stubborn lizard of sanity and, God knows, my elegance. What else is left? As the young seeks change, so will I. Seeks the carmine lip, so the white bud seeking God, the unchanged

Swimming Lessons

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We spend our days on the beach, working on our tans. My pale wife hides under a big floppy hat. The water is crystal clear.

Urgencies

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...it was moving toward me from an oblique angle somewhere behind, steadily, relentlessly.

I Don't Know Why I Bother With You

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I think we had parties with cats before— you were Mr. Gallant, and I Madame Sunshine—we would drink tea laced with toilet spray, and you would complain:…

The Torture Never Stops

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Who is the torturer and who is the tortured?

20th Century Boy

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The night I screamed you out of my life for good, I fed your confettied photo to swirling toilet, a ticker tape parade and dead fish burial rolled into one. Later I found the box, a jiffy…

Hoss Men (divided)

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Agents I have little idea. Woiwode partly supported his family in the 60s by publishing in The NYer (his friends were De Niro and Barthelme) so perhaps there was little trouble in his finding one. E.W. met his at a bar. He publishes in Paris and Texas.

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…

Whither Butter Sculpture?

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Would we have been satisfied with a humble butter sculpture of a cow in 1960? Puh-lease! Would Parisians of the Impressionist era swoon over a big-eyed child picture?

Cold Blooded Moon by Paul D. Brazill

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Jason poured himself another glass of Burgundy and tried to flush Jenna from his thoughts

More Of My Dark Job History

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In my 14 to 15 year old life in the late 50s I worked as a clean-up boy in the neighborhood butcher shop up on 5th. Ave.,

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…

Perilous Joy

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...bush tail beside him his closest comfort next to the genes...

In The Place Between - Part 2

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One day a girl with blond hair was walking along the fence on the other side. There were just a handful of us left and I was the only one to notice her. I watched her. She did not see me. The next time I saw her, I went to the fence. I thought she might y

another love letter

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The Date

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Everything was cool until she used the phrase, "five million dollar home."

Tattooed Thumb

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A tattoo of a river steamboat, one you dreamed up in your sleep and drew yourself is anchored around your nail bed on your thumb. I paint my nails with regatta sails. The toxic fumes sting my nose. You say you're bored and take out a needle filling it with ink. I watch as…

+45° 32' 15.91", -122° 40' 54.85"

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A bridge not satisfied with just crossing the river - It slashed through the sky, crashed through nature - Creating a new nature, a double-decker

I'm a Clown in His Circus

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He called me Jay. I called him Dr Corvid. Until the very end, we lived alone. We had no use for any other companionship. I was Dr Corvid's finest achievement until he perfected his Disintegration Ray. I was the first working prototype of Project Novus.Dr Corvid created me…

The Window (Part II)

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When we saw the window, we were impressed. It was so clean and transparent that it reminded us of a new pair of glasses, everything so crisp and clear through it. It looked on to nothing. Actually it looked on to the refridgerators and a few stoves, though most of the…

Indentured Servitude

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"I’m wearing a white sundress with little strings tied at the shoulders, sheer white panties, and a lace push up bra." It sounded good, sexy, likable. The kind of outfit a girl he’d fall in love with would wear- if he was prone to love, that is. "That sou

Pain

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

Cleaverly Done!

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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’.

The Gift Garden (Extract)

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Now I hear a woman's voice. It sounds familiar, like I know her, but in my daze it is slightly distorted, like I am underwater and she is calling to me beneath the waves. She tells me not to be afraid. Her words are calming; they soothe away the panic and confusion. I…

Countdown

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My bones will rob me blind, corpuscle by corpuscle.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 43

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—Have you ever fired a gun?

Assiduity Twenty Seven

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" . . . with twinges of dread and pangs guilt, I worry . . . "