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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.

(Younger Driest)

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He did not seek a place on a cabinet, nor to impress stockholders with placards of wealth and return; he did not enumerate the downtrodden and asocial with advertised miracle treatments, or write a best seller on the markings of success. All he did, all h

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.

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.

Harried or Employed

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Irony is written sarcasm. Sarcasm is spoken irony: the opposite of what is meant. Catholic irony in fiction seems deeper and more related to theme. Protestant irony starts with P as do other þing.

End of the Cloud

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Somewhere between the bleating of sheep And the laying of eggs Comes the licking of frosting And the eating of the cake We’re not young enough To know everything anymore And you may think there’s no rush But I know this There’s a limit t

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…

A Slick Story

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After Slick Daddy — aka Billy Ray Thompson — gave up driving his log truck and took up with playing and singing the blues full-time he was what you might call a hot property around the juke joints along Highway 61. The women didn't seem to mind…

Whip Poor Will

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Save your delirium...

Leaving Home

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

God Wanted Us to Come Here

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Betty had been looking for a distraction; the lawsuits were out of control. Her last nonprofit, Faith and Life Children's Organization, had run into some difficulties due to the recession and the obvious result of trying to do more with less. Why couldn't people…

The Hostage

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My mother should have been a minister or a peace officer. Instead, she was a homemaker who ran the home like an agency. There were certain hard and fast rules.

HVAC is so sexy. What?

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We had imagined making babies with ease, as if they were simply fruit- ripening on the trees around us- and all we had to do is stretch out our limbs and pluck. We never imagined that skill is involved, that heartbreak is required, and that the one simpl

Gymnopedies

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Does sound shape silence/ or silence shape sound?

Gabe

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“Damn!” he said to himself, wondering for the millionth time what he was doing in such a sad line of work. Break time, he decided, grabbing his stash box and locking himself into the freezing cold bathroom to smoke a joint. He emerged thirty minutes la

Go Running Up That Hill

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

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…

Session Fifteen

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"That it was my stepdad's fault."

How did you get your second Silver Star

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No one told us that the LZ was already hot and the last Combat Mobile Team had already been shot down and killed. No, no one told us that. So when we came in below about 500 feet I began to hear that "pitit" sound of AK-47 rounds going right through the f

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.7 - c.4

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Azure lowered her head, nearly burying it in the window, watching the helicopter land.

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

Of Roses and Hyacinths

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The blooms are practical/ and cannot see themselves

FEAR OF LANDING

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“Omaha is filled with fine clothing stores for men,” he says, “all of them doing very well. Whereas Minneapolis is a different story altogether.” I am trying to sleep in seat 26C. 26B is occupied by Mildred who has already introduced herself,…

Holiday Moons

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Not quite full, but bright,/ December 23rd.__ A waning moon for New Year’s Day-/ Portent?

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.

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.

A Love Letter To The Glasgow Transport System

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Skulk like a lovespun spider in a record store corner on the orange formica subway car

Feb 1

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On our wedding day he carried all of the furniture out of our small bedroom, created a sanctuary.

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.