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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

Advice To A Young Poet

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Touch these words with your mind. They will create an elephant with an unidentifiable itch.

Noir vs. Noir

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You're sitting in a darkened theatre with Gothic ceilings and one exit watching the latest Alan Ladd film with William Bendix and Veronica Lake.

Waiting for Wanda

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And why rabbits? Rabbits never went to a slaughter house. Rabbits died in the road, run over by cars, shot by prepubescent boys or eaten by dogs but never slaughtered in mass. It didn’t make any sense, thought Art and he wanted to ask the small man i

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?”

The Stranger

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“I can't go to sleep,” Jonathan said, laying on the doctor's couch. He counted on his fingers to keep his mind active. “I'll certainly die if I do.”

Perdita in pieces

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Perdita's confusing profusion of parts makes it impossible to know which way up she goes.She flutters beneath the camera's shuttered stare, …

5 Poems In The Shape Of Other Poems

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the things we will accomplish, the things we will leave to others

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.

Pain

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Everything I understand / is in danger.

One in the Numberless Series of Requiems

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We perform our chosen duty— naming/ beauties and atrocities within

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,…

Vacuum City

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What chaos comes from / insufficiency? What else can calcify dreams?

The 6 Rules of Shoes

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4. If you wear size 13, you'll trip a lot.

Quintet in a Natural Key

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I like the cool and dark beneath my rock./ It protects me from the glare and scorch/ of noonday sun and the chilling shadows/ of midnight moon.

Unintentional Hermits- Double Exposure

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The mother continued to stand, marooned in her isolation and Isis' hostility in between table and bed and under the overhead which cast a blue tinge, she held the newspaper- The Daily Mail- which embarrassed Isis- aloft and at an angle, one leg position

Underpass

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The real problem, though, was the radiator.

Lost Among the Consonants

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I'm writing our initials in black sharpie on the tunnel wall. There's already people who have come before me, hundreds of pairs of Qs and As and hearts in the middle, through a small hole in the brick I can hear the French accents, spinning through, a reminder that I am…

The Strength of Glass

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They sit across from each other and she smiles as if they were in a normal place.

The Palace of Nansi

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It's advertised as a romance. The poster shows a Sudanese woman with a child at her side collecting gum from Acacia trees.

Where is Home?

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We are both 53 and this is the first time I’ve gotten past a third date with anyone from Match. Seth is different. I’m not sure why. My therapist said, “Well, maybe you’ll be good for each other. You both have to accept that you are recovering, or in reco

"Daddy, Can You Find the Cheerios?"

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Why, these were the young hands that I kissed only last night.

Never End a Story with "And then he Awakes"

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Leaning toward Joshua, Stuart says softly, “Take it easy, okay? We’ll bury him. He shouldn’t be left here, in your kitchen.” Joshua glares. “Don’t you fucking move him.”

Santos

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Further down a small group of men lolled near a doorway.

As Faulkner's Birthday Nears, Mailmen Ask "What If?"

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Before he became famous Faulkner was postmaster at the University of Mississippi Substation Post Office, a fact that endears him to mailmen around the world.

The Fat Girl

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She never leaves her desk, but food appears like magic.

True Stories About False Dancers

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The world is a mighty funny place. It spins wildly and we are held down by its strong ghostly gravity. We're still able to communicate with one another over morning coffee and delicious cake donuts dipped in chocolate. Some of us used to keep…

My Cyber Companion

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Jannsun started working for Matrix back when he gave up on writing the next great American Novel, which was about five years ago, right after the war. He was old for a Web Zone designer but who knew? Who cared? His work was all done via satellite and as l

skull of a sheep

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You are in a car speeding through Dublin towards the West year after year the journey uncoils past the same landmarks Kilmainham Jail strapped to a chair bullet to the brain on by the Rowntree Mackintosh factory where the black and yellow and orange and r

Spirit Voices Saying Yes

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some are cameras, some are daggers, some are sauces pans, others are swords, and some will run off and others will burn a hole into the spot which they land.