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wintering

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a name is what you are, and a name is a wall between. one day let me be earth, so you may be allowed to say you love me. for now i am separate. i'm afraid that's how i will die, and …

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 14

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Frank left Michiko’s building and walked into Central Park.

Crumpled

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We wanted so much to find ourselves in a beautiful world. It was, and is, but every inviting leaf has got another hidden dangerous precedent that must be surrendered to in order to survive to see another sunset with the ones you actually…

All Wet

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the small break of consciousness that is my dreamswaterso much wateri can never forgive the watertoo many tears

Be Afraid

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Everything conspires to kill you:

TBT

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Back then we used to dance slowly to Sam Cooke's “You Send Me” on your parquet floors, whispering about planting our vegetable garden, planning to seed the lawn with centipede grass, promising to count all the red cars that came down the street.

The $275 Root Beer Float

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That was some root beer float. It cost us a grand total of $275. She pulls up in front of Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor and leaves the motor running while I jump out and run into the parlor. It was early evening. We HAD to have a root beer float. You

Path

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a man sees salamander bands / a-cracklin on the scree

On an Iceberg of Words

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She cut me adrift On an iceberg of words And words melt As you know Looks like we may have Gone out on the limb A little too far without A toe-hold on Reality Doesn’t it? But I saw the headlines: Cows Bound for Slaughterhouse Make

If Only it Were So

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In the moment I crinkle the aluminum foil, The sandwich now a deeper Part of me

Friday Out

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Seeing her in black / with his arm around her / from the other side / of a glass door. / He gave her a beer. / She might’ve been thirsty, / uncomfortable.

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,

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…

Suicide Consulting Hotline

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We exist to facilitate/ successful conclusions of hopeless lives.

Actually I Train Woodpeckers for Al-Qaeda

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Now that Spring has sprung I am reminded about the day a former neighbour complained about my squirrel collection. I love to feed the black squirrels that gather in my yard and she became convinced I had trained several ninja squirrels to enter her garden

my apartment needs more culture

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the first night we visited/ i stepped on a splinter/ while walking to the car/ and half-limped back,/ hiding a wince.

Announcing Human Season

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Contest rules are simple. Two teams of five hunters each are established by drawing from pools of interested volunteers and selected prison inmates confined for capital crimes and illegal immigration.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Up & Down Stairs

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Nature has patience.

Last Night

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If they are all speaking medicine & I / start speaking French - how / rude am I? Would they understand then / what it is to be entirely left out / of the conversation, unseen?

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.

Where is Now and When is There?

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The floor dissolves beneath us, pierced by lasered/ glare of countless eye-beams.

The Phosphorescent French Fry

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She's speaking again, this time in whispers. Her head is shrinking in on itself. If there is a way to save her I'm not aware of it.

Hooves on the Sand

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It was a bright day in April, the cruelest month, and the gears and pumps of the train beat on into the still air.

three gretchens

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The story of a second, a stone, and an android -- all curiously interrelated and all, coincidentally, named Gretchen

Menelaus Supporting Patroclus

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He remembers, he touches, he lifts and kisses the mouth.

Snowbound

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Shut up.You shut up.That's disgusting.You should talk.Fuck off.Fuck me.whore.Yes.More.Shut up.

Another, Another, Another

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It’s just another Day where I feel tired, but I Don’t know why it’s so.

RONDO ROND WE GO

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When he got to the office, he opened the drawer with the new can of fish food and realized he’d forgotten to buy a fish tank. He hated fish, hated the thought of a “hobby” but his girlfriend’s therapist had suggested it. Hobbied, hobbled, whatever

Grandfather Clock

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On a cold November afternoon I stood in the foyer of Sampson and Sons funeral home and paced silently back and forth across the purple carpet. They have that deep pile and rich color of carpeting that you only really see in a small town…