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Katie

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Katie died on Tuesday.

Vacuum City

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

You Are

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"Let somebody else deal with for a while, man, I'm tired."

My Yogurt Jones

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And so began my love affair with a thick, semisold substance. Sort of like Mary Van de Velde, the chubby girl who was my partner in my 6th grade polka troupe.

All You Need Is Love

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Now I know All you need is coffee

A Man More Like Your Mother

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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…

If Hell...

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the sour waft of a secret

Gummi Worms, Love, etc.

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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.

His Name Was Tokarsky, But He Looked Like Bob Dylan

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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

Bad Ideas I've Had

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Not all ideas are bad, just mine.

aromatic

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this bleeding sun, clove studded & seedless

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.”

Payton, Pelt & Hargrove: 3 (Sorta) Young Lions of the Jazz Trumpet

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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.

the girl who was my suicide

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last night a girl came to me in the shape of my suicide.

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?”

Almost There

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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

Sunday in Dogpatch, circa 1990

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Inspired by the photographic work of Susan Lipper. Grapevine series, 1988-92. http://susanlipper.com/gv_23.html

Losses in Translation

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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.

Graven Images

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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…

My Bunny Hop Years

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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.

Airline Passengers! Is There A Right To Recline?

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It's called the Knee Defender. But I prefer to think of it as the Schmuck Identifier.

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.

Returning

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YOU cross the park as the evening gathers, the playground is deserted, streetlights spark up orange beyond the trees that veil the main road. You feel your journey pushing at your back, the last scraps of the energy of a train hammering north. At the far edge of…

A meditation on mint tins

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And I am reminded of river eyes: The summer we slumbered, Like mummies in the sand

The Tiger Who Jumped Over the Moon

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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…

Cats

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and you imagine euthanizing them if what she says is true, that she is leaving them to you in her will.

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

Before Language

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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

Lucky in Love

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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.

They Wanted Songs about Love but Got Idle Chatter.

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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. …