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Learning to Live With Radical Presbyterians

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Proponents of this pragmatic line of thinking say a tolerant approach to Islam will succeed where force has failed to persuade terrorists to abandon the religious fanaticism. It's certainly worth a try--it worked with Presbyterians.

Double Vision

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To conceive of them separated was unthinkable to every wet-eyed soul at the burial.

Go Running Up That Hill

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Better move ‘cause I hear them comin’ up the other side.

The Devil’s Troubadour

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The Devil’s laugh was the screech of wind. Ignacio Carillo heard Him as he dug the grave that would hold the body of his beloved wife.

Boswell Meets The Subterrans

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He bounds like a lunar explorer into the Edinburgh Castle, the goofy porcelain busts glaring at him with contempt.

Session Fifteen

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"That it was my stepdad's fault."

You Require Sharpness of Image and Therefore of Words

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I wrote a poem and asked a professor to read it. / He said: IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE / like a mad man on meth, foam running down / his mouth crowded with sharp, shimmering teeth.

Tea Time Story

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She smiled at him. "You want to know the secret, that's why you want her to tell - not because you want her to be happy."

John of God, Painted by Murillo

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NO ONE CAN BE A BASTARD FOREVER

Us Kids in Left Field

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Us kids in left field steal out bedroom windows after dark to pinch hit Lucky Strikes between first and second fingers, arc the glow of shop-lifted hot-boxed cigarettes over the chain link homerun fence sprawl on perfectly ridiculous grass passing a bottle…

Notebook (excerpt)

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I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.

Of Alleys & Ivory

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“You think it’s a self-castrating suicide note or a self-righteous freedom speech?” “Probably just the ramblings of a madman, pissed he lost a company baseball game.” “Fuckin-A, Pete! Double-murder suicide for a baseball game? Ain’t nobody that craz

Ghost Story

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They come to wipe themselves from my memory, but that, of course, is impossible. In this place, we are bound together, the long line of men who have killed me, and I.

Leaving Home

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it is heavier than it looks with edges smoothed by the passage of time

Nothing Much

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As a boy, he had little hope of ever becoming anything.

Moving Out

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Lying in the blissful glow of young television. Idly sleeping, eyes open and ears closed.

The Exiled Realm

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destinies bring me to a damned desert

I didn't ask for help

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I didn't ask for help

Five Million Yen: Chapter 39

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Ben followed Jean-Claude’s white Fiat. Every time Ben shifted gears, he was reminded of Arris’s punch.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 15

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There was a motley assortment of customers in the restaurant. Mostly casually dressed young men and women who looked like freelancers of some persuasion.

Into the Mystic

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Writing opens doors to perception. For example, the glockenspiel smells of gardenias, but the catwalk is opening a can of Franklin stove. It emits fumes of fairyland and olive. And in the green and pleasant country of Scotland and England, vintage trains go…

I want to hear the man talk

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I remember going out to a restaurant with some guy and a friend of mine who brought her little boy along. And suddenly her boy said, “I want to hear the man talk.” Well, that stopped us. Smart kid, I thought. He was fed up hearing her women friends talk

When the Moon Becomes the Sun

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While most spread their time in other occupation, I traveled through books and grew my imagination. I knew endless bliss. I was a book eater. I would just devour books that I loved and slug through those I didn't, just to make myself eat the truths and li

With Eyes Closed

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I believe I will become a bear, snuggle up in a deep cave, coil myself inside my fur, close my eyes on hurting images, turn a deaf ear to the uproar of the world. Bolt my door to the deceiving voices outside. Sleep. Forget. Wait, as we wait for spring, for the violet and…

Missed connections

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I lost my job but the government found me a new one. Now the government pays me to pretend I’m a travelling businessman. I fly around the country to imaginary meetings. It’s part of a project to make it look like the economy is doing well.

Coffee Alone

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And pity us, this generation of sighing:

The Writing Class

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I ask if anyone has a poem or a story they would like to read. Everybody's hand shoots up.

Allergic Reaction

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On his way to his first fishing expedition in the Bay Area, the man remembered the rustle and shimmer of the willows by the muddied Jemez River in New Mexico, cold beer, the clean camaraderie of childhood friends. He walked along a path choked with greenery to the San Pablo…

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.

33 and a 1/3

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I've been in Tucson two days, and so far most of my conversations with my father have taken place while I crane my neck and squint into the sun. I scream up, he screams down. He needs to fix the leaky roof before the rainy season, he says.