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The Virtues of the Patient Lizard

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He will feast and die beneath the glaring gaze of the western sky, waiting patiently for what will come next

Karen

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Karen was a shy horse.

"they call me the midnight gambler"

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That night I came as close to getting laid as I had ever come in my life, without actually getting laid, after two and a half hours of intense petting, begging her to go down in the front seat of my car, with her asking: Why? Why, Jerry? Why? That was a

summer fields

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we ran that afternoon/across Bayshore lanes/into green blooming fields, beyond all those

The Majesty of the Infinite

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The other night at work, some kid was in for swallowing a snail's shell. He was nine and, according to the computer, did not have cognitive insufficiency. That last bit was probably put there to make us all not feel guilty about laughing at him.

Tomorrow

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You hold me now, and pay attention. Everything is new.

Better Spent Time

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there is a tunnel / between your skin and the ground / for kisses to crawl

Red Lady Octopus

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I hand one of them the octopus and run out of the room.

The Executioner

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No one knows where the wind comes from, but sure as hell it comes. The executioner glances round the reception area. Nods to himself. Function versus form. Anodyne, instantly forgettable, like hotel rooms. Perfect.

The Generic Poem

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I’m just your ordinary poem,

Weaving the Way

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Yellows and reds shed warp and weft bobbins of color spooling...

The Ringlet: Part II

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Ashford Garth Willingsham IV stood looking out at the Gulf of Mexico from his mansion on Longboat Key. In his right hand was a letter from his divorce lawyer, Reynard Foxx...

Elizabeth Karlin, M.D. and U.W.-Madison’s OB-Gyn Chair’s Cash Window

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Sad to tears, not bubbly, ordered as all in Madison, outpatient by Elizabeth Karlin, internist, later a bullet-proof vest abortion provider.

Bar at East Capitol Road

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My friend, drunk, spoke to me / outside a bar where we hung out; / and his eyes were red from tiredness,

Advice to the Lovelorn at the Mall

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Beware of shouting Dress Barn, Dress Barn! when having an orgasm And don’t tell him you were seeing Starbucks when you came

Begonia {part seven}

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Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh; the rhythmic thrust of Mezereon’s wings…Th-Bumm, th-bumm, th-bumm; the drumming of his heart…Hooou, hooou, hooou; the exhalations of his breath…

The Umbrella

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140 Words on Solitude and Being Alone

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As a child I drowned myself in the pages of books, and as a writer I prefer to be left alone with my imagination.

Intimate Dialogues - "Ledge"

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It was a mildly windy day of the working week in the financial district of the city—the bright morning sun was out—when a security guard was called to the fifteenth floor to deal with a disruption. “This way.” Someone pointed to a desk. At the desk

The Madwoman Who Called on My Wedding Day

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She’d reached me after running through the directory, alphabetically. Apparently no one in the a’s or b’s or c’s before me would talk to her.

The Nurse

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I lay on a table in a cold room in one of those little blue gowns that open in back.

Jonestown on a Global Scale

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Picture it-/ air not clogged with the shit// that makes Beijing the dark joke/ of the developed world.

The Parade

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I see them walking. They pass right by my house. If I’m outside, I sit down on our porch and watch the parade. Sometimes I watch them out of a front window.

Kandie Contretemps

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She sat in a tall chair and there was only one time in the interview that she took her sunglasses off. She didn't really take them off, but just pulled them down for an instant with thumb and forefinger in order to look out at something going past the window. They said…

Kash Mire

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You watch with frigid eyes, as their soggy woolens squelch dark mud, even smiling a little as they make croaking frog-lure noises. You know eventually a toad or two would land in the Frogger. You like the word Frogger.

flash

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okay fine, on the count of three

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…

Two

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i am two / one part me / another part them

'Is This a Problem?'

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London, England. 1999.

Tinkler Man

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As the light changed and exhaustion set in, Suzy and Molly batted back and forth one more knock knock joke to avoid going home.