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It's really not the same

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It wasn't the same as taking a course with Ginsberg. Everyone knew Ginsberg. Nick Cave, too, everyone knew him. Waiting lists were full months in advance for those classes, everyone sent in resumes and writing samples, praying, begging to be included. Lish was just an…

How to Tell if Your Loved One Belongs in the Booby Hatch

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It is well known around town that Ray's dad went crazy. Today, when asked, everyone will tell you that they knew all along he had a screw loose, told their wife, “That Mick Borkowski's gone bat-shit.” But when it was happening, no one paid it any…

Nanny

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I remember the days when my brother and I would walk down Tillman Square, careful to avoid the cracks zigzagging along the ground. Well I did. My brother made a point to step on every one.

Sanguine

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Gripping the sink, head bowed, I let the blood gather on the rim of my nose, pooling for a moment, before its fleeting journey towards the basin.

Museum Story Listening

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A sort of invocation of the open sky, in contradistinction to the dark of the Earth whence came the specimens, a figurative marriage of the literal darkness of exploration and the figurative light of knowledge.

The Great Divide

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On the ridge in front of them, appeared a creature, neither man had ever seen before, standing taller than their horses, the strange beast walked on two powerful legs...

Family First

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“Don’t do this Jack. You are better than this.” He pleaded. My lips curled, “Maybe I am, but you’re not.” I spat. I lifted up his delicate frame and threw him back against the wall of his office. I watched as his head bounced off the decorative brick

20,000 Years of The Apartment For The Dead

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He saw places that he hadn't thought existed. He found his analog from 17,000 years ago praying inside of a white pyramid in Kathmandu, and saw how the fireballs being catapulted through the air outside were stopped in midair by a beam coming from the top

Assiduity Twenty Three

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The outside world will intrude . . .

'With All Due Respect . . . '

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Our deepest, most heartfelt apologies about the recent MySpace Bulletin, which mentioned your name and recent film and quoted you in jest. Your fifteen-page retalitory riposte was received by this office this morning, via fax sent by your assistant.

The Gravediggers

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The night before we dug John Clark's grave, my brother and I stood outside his windows and got an eyeful. Rose, his wife, should have closed the blinds. There she was in the arms of Willard, her neighbor, middle school science teacher. It was a serious…

Braque's Diary of the Atelier Cut-Outs

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Today, the buxom neighbor carrying blintzes Egged me not to care about What’s not flat. She forgot To bend, clanging together Some fronts and sides.

My Wife's Dream

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He was a Jack Russell terrier hanging like a baby in a carrier strapped to my chest He had all four legs wrapped around me and was licking me with his long tongue I asked him what his name was, and in a real low voice he said Min

Penultimate Vampirekiller for 2026

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". . . Stinkin' vampires, death to all of ’em, them and their plague-festerin' rats. But the new ones, I don’t mind takin’ ’em down before gettin’ rid of ’em. —But you’ll never get that smell off o’ you if you use only one condom, I’m here to tell you . .

How the 60's Ended

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The Beatles on TV their last show together as a group and we all knew it smoking dope sitting around in large groups in living rooms across the universe they sang Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road knowing a man

Fire In The Heart

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The woman leapt from the top of the burning building. The flames reddened the faces of the watching crowd. The heat pushed them back. The woman hit the ground. The crowd oooooed. If only I'd been a firewoman, I thought, with a ladder as tall as a building and a…

Klout

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while you peed on that little old lady's begonias

The Cure for Cancer

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Thus, more people can drown// and leave their bones

Slivers from the edge

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Four ships anchor Far off shore Chains slip Beneath the swell.

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 memories lived in the house

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each act of creation is a jolt of expectation

Can't We All Be Writers?

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Why not just self-publish on Fictionaut and be read by thousands of my peers? Why not release my cherished work directly to my thousands of Facebook or Twitter or blog friends? Can the budding writer that I am realistically expect a larger audience?

Roads Sign and Speech Acts

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Notice: No Trespassing. Warning: Falling Rock. Caution: Dangerous Curve. Declaration: I Love You.

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…

Toothed and Thorny

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Cliffs are not all I've known, but I've seen them every day since I came to light. When I first broke out of the shell that protected me from feet and poisons, I pushed my way into darkness. It was soil. I could not have survived if it was light, and when I surfaced there…

Another Life Altogether

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{ a Triolet }A smile, a wave as I stepped out Into another life altogether ‘Twas little enough to talk about A smile, a wave as I stepped out And O' how after they did shout (Yet now we only talk of weather) A smile, a wave as I stepped out Into another life…

How To Win With Mom

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My mother’s serene and patient voice flew up the staircase once again “Megan, are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”

My Alice

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My story begins where so many have ended, strapped fast to a cold table, just moments from a lobotomy needle and anything resembling the man that I am.

Puppet X, 2

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It's important to sound human, I know To get fragile near your mother I myself get glimpses now and then

Hoping For Bones

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In the backyard with Joey, I make the mistake of answering him honestly when he asks what the gray brick in the dirt is for. “My parakeet is buried there,” I say. And he asks, “can we dig it up?”Joey's grandma lives down the street; he comes over…