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Assiduity Twenty Five

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" . . . it's overcast with scattered rain along the Wabash River as I approach the federal correctional complex . . . "

There's Life Underground

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I'm not dreaming anymore.

Snapshots

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“Do you have a job? Are you going back to school,” I asked, you know, because I’m hip like that.

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.

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

Violet Hour

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“My name is Violet,” I add. I am trying to stop lying. Going without cigarettes has been easier.

Hook

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“What the fuck!” Duke muttered, amazed at what he was seeing in the darkened store. A thin curtain of smoke was rising from under the baseboard like an inverted waterfall. It stretched the entire length of the left wall. Holy shit, the joint's on fire! I…

Landmarks

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Play somethin’ solemn, they told me, or somethin’ that sounds like home or the mountains in summer.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 28

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On Monday, Michiko returned from Cleveland in a foul mood. She called Frank’s studio at three in the afternoon.

Consequently, I Rejoice

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The infinite terrifies.

Acorn Gardening for Everyone

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I'd like to grow you a new flower. I thinkmaybe I just will. Right now. Here's as good a place as any. Well you'll probably never get to see it, but it will be there just the same and it will be all yours. Kind of like these poems that I make if…

The Mission of Dimitri Kastratitov

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A nuclear-plant fuel rod engineer, Dimitri Kastrotov, had an axe to grind, so invented an atomic deterrent, to counterbalance mankind. He targeted the filthy rich, greedy sons of a bitch, breeding war, weapons and nukes at a reckless fever pitch After …

My Hollows

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Let me say these words now

Your Dream Advisor

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Every night I say "I dream about you all the time, Nae Ann," but the truth is I don't. I dream about stupid crap at work like air filters for a 2006 Mazda RX-8 GT.

A Raisin in The Sun

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I was about sixteen or seventeen when James Miller had a stroke and died. He was a friend of my father's and a preacher-guy. The last time our church had been that full was at the barbecue the weekend after the church was built. Somehow, the structure went…

Trick or Treat

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A Halloween drabble. Happy Halloween to all!

Fear

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Fear I’ll be stuck here without a ladder

Paradise

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The oval-shaped, pearl-white objects shimmered soundlessly in the warm sunlight. Suddenly one object veered off and headed towards them stopping to hover not twenty feet away. Suddenly their phones vibrated simultaneously. They both looked at their messa

Goodbyes

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She’s Dead

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Hank: Yeah, the way her head was bashed in, it looks like someone really had it in for her. Did you call the coroner? Bill: Yeah. Boy, you couldn’t pay me enough to do the stuff those coroner and medical examiner guys do. It seems like

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.

Samurai Kitteh

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She did not know the passage of time, for she was just a bedraggled little kitty, but she stayed behind the lattice for many rising and settings of the Sun.

Blue Ridge

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...swallowed like a radiant yolk by an epicurean barracuda.

Trying to remember something else, I recall supreme and utter solitude in a far off time and place

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Before the war...

These Dreams We Are Having

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It is just a little break from the colicky baby who has finally fallen asleep. Just a little break, maybe a half hour. And the faulty heater, that wolf at the door, knows that and will take his chance. The two of you are lying on your backs, both of yo

The Amazing Adventures of Macro-Microbe

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Macro-Microbe parked his car and proceeded on foot, which was a misnomer because he had no feet. Typical for Manhattan, no one gave him a second glance except for a homeless woman who tried to sell him hand-sanitizer. Macro-Microbe locomoted himself insid

13 cyborg poets

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1. Lost in the Vision Matrix, J0hn Clare transmitted a distress signal designed to be audible only to himself.2. T S El10t ran on a complex algorithm that produced seemingly fragmentary results. However, if you run Imagewise an underlying order appears.3. C0ler1dge suffered…

Uncanny Valley, Goodbye

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When not enough is left to utterThe syllables it takes to say,Goodbye--Disassembled and developed,Laid upon the ground,Like the girded gridlockOn your smog befitted brow...Goodbye.And what if I said, hello?What if I said, good day?Would it change your sunken bodyAnd repair…

Last Stop

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So we stayed on the train admiring the time.

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.