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The Magic Trumpet

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I gave my trumpet case to a girl named Sophie; she liked the velvet inside.She still played with dolls;they would live there,in the dark away from the world.Safe. I was a terrible trumpeter;i missed the high notes in band, squawked like a chicken.I strapped the trumpeton my…

Woman at the Bar

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I saw a woman / at the bar tonight

Dragonfly

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Dragonfly She danced out of the burning rubble, wrapped in a shawl made of iridescent silk. It must have been her grandmother's. Her arms were wings, the silk translucent and fluttering. Fire fell from the sky. Thatched roofs, walls of mud-daubed sticks, the huts…

Weather Forecasting

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By the time the forked tongue of the flag extended flat like it was pressed between two of my thick volumes on weather forecasting, the man was still walking with his nose glued to the ground.

Induce Me

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Life's a beach? A bitch? Same thing.

Continuing Sundown

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He gave her everything she hoped for, with the exception of two things.

Excelsior - A Poem in 9 Parts (post 2 of 5)

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II. ByCoalport Your hair streams minarets across a bridge, The…

the open road

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There are moments in life where it's like you're driving late at night and you should be on your way home but really you're just rolling along aimlessly through the city streets when suddenly you turn a corner and realize the road is open and empty for miles to come, a…

Shell of a Life

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This is what happens when a writer falls in love...

our last time

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If you had gotten pregnant our last time, in 1967 (when you lied and told me “I guess I’m finally over you,”) then our son could have been that man you saw with the drooping moustache and his coattails flying in the lobby of the building in Louisville,

The Umbrella

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Sensoria

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For Takama this created the second conundrum of the day. One even bigger than the first. When he’d first learnt that sensei and he would be boarding a flight together for a series of demonstrations in Geneva, little had he expected he would be locked up i

Puffer Fish in the Infinite Laboratory

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They put me in charge of developing a drug that stifles fear.

The Dryad

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So into the woods we went, hoping to open a portal into the netherworld of make believe. I had a feeling we would see nothing, but she believed in me. At the very least I would spend a few very nice days backpacking in the wilderness.

Coated FOGRA39

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try to keep him from eating the children

lime shed

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purely fun, humane, scientific, old time religious experimentation

Cheney Had Plans To Light Off the Reichstag

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The whole human race was in trouble. As I said in another story a couple of weeks back, Zork the Galactic Destroyer had plans to make Planet Earth a nice, toasty snack for him and his boys. He'd sent his most illustrious spy, the Good Captain Zeep,…

I Fall in Love Too Fast

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It was Wednesday, the papers had a food section that day, so the gap-toothed news hawker at the mouth of Winter Street would yell out “Foozection! Foozection!”

Breaking News

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We are our own pathogens.

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

Grandma Rose Watched the Fights

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I think she later thought about that. Just as she loved her son, I loved my mother. Just as my dad loved her, so the same kind of protective honoring love existed. Right or wrong, it was there, the elephant in the room.

Cleaning The Dead

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"Don't pull too hard," warned Father. "You might sever it from the body, spraying blood into your eyes."

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.

Endless

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Endless. I find this story.Beginning. To walk.Repeating. Repeating.The Memory. Of snow.Amsterdam. Rivers narrow.Hearts. Divide.Hands. Emboldened.Patronizing. Unpatriotic.Semblance. House held open.Forging. The ties…

My Stuff

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Crass, vulgar, boorish, impaired, angry, depressed, jealous, regretful.

Gator v. Funky Worm: Which Office Party Dance to Choose?

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It’s that time of year. The combustible mixture of booze, poinsettia corsages and the soulful sounds of Eddie Venturi and the Fastidians will cause people to get up and dance at holiday office parties who have no business doing so.

It's not heavenly light, b!*&#.

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He stopped believing in God when he learned how balls worked. Spermatocytes turned into spermatids and spermatids turned into spermatozoa, the transition taking place in tiny loop de loops called the seminiferous tubules which contain at least three…

Close/Far

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If you were glassI'd fog you up With my breathI'd leave messagesPictographsIn fingerprints I'd press in closeSo would youAnd so we'd danceBut you are glassAn inch of depthTo catch my breath

The Class of '61

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My head is nailed to yesterday.

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.