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Blog 9-15-11

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...my books have lots of swear words. So there's that.

Flesh

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Here’s to flesh:

summer fields

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

On the Anniversary of My Grandfather's Passing

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What I remember about my grandfather were his fart jokes. When he wasn't telling us kids about how young David defeated the mighty Goliath or how Saul the pharisee humbled himself to become Paul the Apostle, he was telling us about the baby burp that begg

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.

Better Spent Time

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

A Life of My Own - 8

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I'm not sure if he's right or not but he has a gorgeous smile, he's charmingly self confident, and he's very persuasive.

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.

Red Lady Octopus

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

The Lizard King

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Jim Morrison moved ever so slightly in the cold of his grave

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 Mouth Is A Swell Place To Invent Things

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Yesterday I saw Marco Polo getting a tattoo on East Olive. He was practicing Mandarin Chinese with the tattoo artist who was also Chinese. He got a yin yang symbol on his bicep. He looked to the east and saw the hills lift themselves into sky. He grimaced

The Witch in the Canyon

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There's a witch in Laurel Canyon.She made Wes a promise.Her bungalow smelled like Parliaments. Parliaments, garlic frying in olive oil. Parliaments, garlic frying in olive, and a freshly opened pack of Red Vines. Wes could have curled up into a ball and fallen asleep on her…

Every Mirror with Two Sides

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She was gazing down at her two hands holding the peach seersucker top, but without blinking she saw four hands—ahh, idiot, the mirror! But in the next moment no, it was four hands . . .

Level Three Offender

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What do you mean dope in the front seat. I always keep my dope in the trunk. I mean hey, children DO steal.

In the Air Tonight

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But that last night in Europe, getting ready to fly out of Amsterdam back to the States, I heard this Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” which expressed some of the turmoil and confusion and whole-life hysteria I was feeling inside. Waves of fru

Wheelbarrels

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What a great feeling it was, the day I first thought about and discovered how toilets work. Nearly as exciting as the day I learned wheelbarrel is actually spelled wheelbarrow.

Meat and Bones

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The man who put up the clothes line left his kids upstairs at night and came down to my bed.

The Floating Dock

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Charley carried the corpse over to the dinghy and tossed it into the pool of rain water collected inside. The headless snake swerved through the water, oblivious to its fate, powered perhaps by exposed nerves and muscle memory.

There They Are! Here They Come!

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“Help us, help us,” the children are saying. “They’ll come back. Help us. They bite.”

1 col 24 point heading here

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I had ink for blood then and “the news” was my oxygen.

Rule of exchange

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She seizes my hand. I resist just enough to sense her strength.

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

Two Brothers

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They run nonstop for weeks. Between traffic stalled cars. Down forgotten subways tunnels drilled long ago in the cold earth. Past burning sugarcane fields.

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…

I Liquidate My Assets

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My businessman does as his nature allows him. He is so cute. All day long he makes deals. He is on his phone most of the time. He raises his voice. “Fuck those fuckers, just do it,” is what he says. My businessman hedges risk on his investments by keeping…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 12

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Frank was happy to leave the art show and take the train back to SoHo.

Lola

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I know you through the rich dark brown soilcrumbling in my fingers like chocolate cake.I imagine you nurtured bell-shaped papayas,coaxing their smooth, leathery skinfrom green to yellow,while mangoes, the colors of the island sunset,hung with their tantalizing sweet…

Natchez Shrapnel

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I was like a bullet shot from a university tower