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The Catch

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His granddaughter, Ivy, sat on his knee looking at an old photo album she found under the couch during one of her afternoon explorations. She made him wipe off the dust and cobwebs before he took her through all the pictures, per normal protocol. The albu

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…

No Collar

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Eating my teeth off pulling the silk from my lips and swallowing each kerchief wholejust trying to find the priest who has his heart set on a motorcycle

The 83rd Meridian West

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The priest went into the place in those parts, the priest an old pear or grape gotten ripe and then moreso, but never actually expiring . He was hunched and it looked like he was broken at some integral part, but nobody could tell for sure where. One time, a bat…

Swan Song of the Pareto Optimalists

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I nearly burst out laughing when I heard myself telling him in my accented English that she’d confided in me that she was preparing to sacrifice herself as part of an elaborate snuff film produced by a band of psychotic artists hell-bent on making up for

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...

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…

The Umbrella

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Joe and the Spiderman

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Once upon a time I sat in summer chairs beside cool vine walls. This was in a borough east of the major city, where families gathered in seasonal joy, by blooms fragrant, to worship the summer and its might. There is nothing diminutive about the world when one is…

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…

BLT

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I had a sister-in-law who was a licensed nutritionist. Not sure what “licensed” means, but she had some certificate and worked in a hospital. Hospitals! Places not known for their cuisine, much less their nutrition. —So, what do you…

Home Security

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They might think that loneliness has made me gullible, more than willing to open for them all kinds of drawers.

i've worn it like a trophy all day

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if i could i would leave/ my beating heart like flowers/ pumping blood upon your doorstep/ in gory testament/ to the way you make me feel.

Blanket of Ivory

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Diane couldn’t shake her compunction. Though eight and a half months had passed, nothing felt right anymore. Their conversation played out in her dreams, and stilled her during everyday errands.

Origin Story

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My father taught me how to solder and that's when I first started to write. Now, when you hold the soldering iron in your hand and depress the trigger, the tip of the gun heats up. Novices uncoil the solder and place it on the hot tip, but that just results in it…

Inner City

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This time he was dressed in a snap-brimmed hat, zoot suit with a gold chain and two-toned shoes; something out of a sad, lost Los Angeles past. I had no choice but to follow him as he walked down stairs that led to the Metro. We stood near one another,…

Boundaries

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Hands and fingers feeling down Cross the boundaries I laid

(give me a real moment with a living god and I’ll go all the way)

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I remember, when I was selling real estate, how you could always tell when there'd been a divorce. One room was conspicuously left emptied of its contents, and these rooms were never swept or tidied. Instead they were left just as they were when the par

said the fury to the shade

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let competitions in crime ensue let every madness bring let every sword be drawn let every furious rage flow free let anger know no shame let all blind rage inflame . . .

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.

The Cure for Cancer

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

Story to Forget

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The white Boeing 747, all three hundred and sixty eight seats of it, prepared to depart from Johannesburg Airport. Mild conditions on a clear flight path coupled with the soothing voice of the first officer didn't allay my unease. I offered a friendly nod to the…

Isn't It Funny How Some People Don't Think They're Contemptibly Stupid?

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[VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.]

Transgression

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I look as sympathetic as I can, under the circumstance, which is entirely unsympathetic.

On The Way To Shabriz

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these dead letters for you... and then they withdrew... something happened on the way to shabriz... my fingertips fell on their knees.

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 Beethoven Delusion

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"It is my argument that a pious fraud has been perpetrated so as to subject mankind to the most humiliating of intellectual enslavements."

Masquerade II

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. . . once you start reading and thinking about what he's saying, it's like looking at the reflection of your soul in a mirror . . .

Continuing Sundown

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