1273 6 5
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Before you tripped on the third rail, you were like any other: coat a shard of midnight-blue, eyes filled with gratitude but for nothing. You were a lost coyote on a snowy hill. With sad magnificence you wandered, terrorizing passengers who secretly wished to pat your…
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1272 2 0
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here’s the deal…
sorrow follows tears…
pain later for the happiness now…
is the joy something we only borrow…?
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1272 2 1
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It was R who embodied love for me. We’d eaten gummi worms in the park, held them up to the sun, yellow and green and translucent. When we returned to her flat, they were everywhere. I’d never seen such a thing. They hung in the air, these gummi worms.
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Not all ideas are bad, just mine.
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It’s the middle-aged jazz musician who tends to get lost in the shuffle; no longer news, and not ready for the marble statue-treatment.
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last night a girl came
to me in the shape
of my suicide.
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On the phone I asked my mother how she was doing.
“I’m getting old,” she said. “Going slow. But getting there. I’m ninety-four!”
My mother was always 94, when she was really 93. I remember she was 93 right after she turned 92. And 92
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1272 2 1
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In moving crowds I plan to break you.
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1272 2 2
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Inspired by the photographic work of Susan Lipper. Grapevine series, 1988-92.
http://susanlipper.com/gv_23.html
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One/
can’t always trust the eye and ear//
in such matters but what can one do?/
Mistakes will be made.
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1272 3 4
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Richard gets me started, tells me to undress the two women mannequins in the storefront window
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1272 6 5
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Mother hated a crucifix. Graven, she said. Evidence that Catholics weren't saved, just stuck in ceremony. Jesus had risen and anyone who had to pray in Latin, count beads or confess to robed men who took orders from a monarch didn't know…
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1272 5 2
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The Bunny Hop represented that riot-like atmosphere–in cuddly guise–described by Claude Levi-Strauss in his seminal essay that I have forgotten the name of it’s so important.
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1271 0 0
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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.
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1271 4 2
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Does he pack you a lunch when you're running late for work? Even when you're not running late? Does he insist on regular medical check-ups, for which he'll pay because you don't have insurance? Will he disapprove of your objectionable behavior, and not turn the…
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1271 3 0
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And I am reminded of river eyes:
The summer we slumbered,
Like mummies in the sand
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1271 8 7
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Lord knows we all tried to stop him from doing it. You're crazy we said. This makes you look like a lunatic. They'll hunt you down in even heavier droves now. You've upset their delicate memories. I tried to stop him. That's cow territory my friend…
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1271 1 1
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the sour waft of a secret
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Tokarsky and I got chased off an El train by a couple of mean-looking black dudes who looked like they were going to crush us. I let go a spritz of tear gas that I had on me in the train and we ran as it came to a stop at the Morris Street stop. They chas
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1271 5 5
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this bleeding sun, clove studded & seedless
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1271 1 1
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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.”
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1271 4 0
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Living in the dark ages without language,
I think I’ve been dead long enough.
You can come out of the vast fields of night.
Come out of the vast galactic storm without light.
The darkened dreams
that speed past with their false and brightly lit
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1271 3 1
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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?”
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Clasped his hands behind his head to give a moment’s thought to love and how it had never quite clarified in his mind to run pure and sweet.
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1271 7 3
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Granddad listened to Elvis and then he would talk more or less the entire night. “Mystery Train” was Sam Phillips' song. Then Presley recorded it, but did it up different, sounded much faster so you could feel your hair blow back a bit. …
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1271 1 1
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“I want you to face the toys!”
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1271 2 0
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Charley calls to say he hasn't heard from me. The blinds are gone, so I take a lipstick off the living room table and draw a circle around his head. I make a half-circle for his gut, a squiggle for the telephone cord. He can come over, he says, just to …
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1271 2 1
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I woke up when the smoke alarm insisted. Either the curtains were on fire or I hadn't changed the battery.
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1271 3 2
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Yesterday I saw Marco Polo getting a tattoo on East Olive. He was practicing Mandarin Chinese with the tattoo artist who was also Chinese. He got a yin yang symbol on his bicep. He looked to the east and saw the hills lift themselves into sky. He grimaced
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1271 0 0
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My Mother always said that a storm was death knocking.
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