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RONDO ROND WE GO

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When he got to the office, he opened the drawer with the new can of fish food and realized he’d forgotten to buy a fish tank. He hated fish, hated the thought of a “hobby” but his girlfriend’s therapist had suggested it. Hobbied, hobbled, whatever

Drummer Boy

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A door slams. The vibrations rattle through the floor, up his legs and into his chest. He can hear the yells, and the tears that mar her voice. Rat-ta-tatRat-ta-tat A door slams. Eyes closed while images of a life he will never live flicker on…

Buck, naked

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Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

our ragged wits, ragged minds

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Our ragged wits, ragged minds, after acting out all, imitating all honey-like tunes, air song, excellence of song, true flower of the world. So the sun has some of its honey wintered away, to bring it into contact with such a human voice as yours.

Leningrad's Sister City And Her Cuban Sandwiches

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It began not so innocently with voyeuristic tendencies. the sound of concrete and confetti in the night.

Some Things Can't Be Fixed

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Orchids strewn over the floor...

scraps

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i’m trying to remember don’t all the best apples happen in September?

Missing Her

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When the teacher was out of the room Myron pretended to play with himself, saying, “down boy” and smiling to the nervous gasping and fake coughs from the other classmates and, since he's my close friend, I think he does silly stuff like this to contend with…

Pura Vida

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The girl lifts my head, and I sit up straight once again. She hands me a pair of old work gloves, helps put them on my swollen hands. She wipes my face with a wet, warm towel. Her thin arms tremble. She cries. I cry.

The Zone of Forgotten Things

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In the zone of forgotten things, everything moves through a weak gravitational field

Grand Finale

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Adam hitched his dinosaur to a covered wagon. He drove the Virgin Mary to the Faire. Shiva rode behind them in a silver limousine combing out his long and flowing hair.

Autumn

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I have never known how gold this time of year, With its palladium arcade, was, of the trees That do not sense the pleasure of their silence; Trees are egalitarian, they do not speak But concourse among themselves, consent to join us At this moment breathing…

Deifying Gravity

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This gravity thing, I reckon, is enamored with me. It loves me so much that it has fettered me with itself.

The Invention of a Curse Word

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I saw his face

Alice in Hell: 13 slithy variations

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1. Having made Alice from one of the Mad Hatter's ribs, Humpty Dumpty told her she could do anything, except speak. “How bothersome!” she said.2. In the church, Alice was horrified to be presented with a talking lamb. “EAT ME!” it bleated and, as the…

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…

Last Stop

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So we stayed on the train admiring the time.

Groceries

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Your son is six feet tall in the sixth grade. By his sophomore year of high school, he outweighs you by a hundred pounds. He's been offered four football scholarships and one for a sport he's never played. Every morning his mother, your ex ex-wife, makes his breakfast of a…

Anonymous Gamblers

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1. They Don't Know When To Fold 'Em Gambling junkies are lit on losing their ass and almost can't wait to unload their money, and then reel on home and bounce off the walls or whatever. For these guys, losing's the jackpot, and deep in the hole for…

13 statements about the United States of Chimerica made by the Bird King during a press conference

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1. Jesus made the United States of Chimerica from the hide of a gator he killed with his bare hands back in the winter of '81.2. The people of the United States of Chimerica are watched over by a straight-talkin' angel with hillbilly eyes and a crown of nuclear missiles.3.…

My Gall Bladder is Really Warm Today

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The English phrase "Nice to see you" translates into "My gall bladder is really warm today" in Berik, a language of New Guinea. What Language Is, John McWhorter

John of God, Painted by Murillo

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NO ONE CAN BE A BASTARD FOREVER

Osmotic potential

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Guttering semiotics, The jeremiads of delirium; Drinking lukewarm tea over a late candle Like Hamlet in a power-cut; Affecting his own audience of himself, Hastening soliloquies through gritted sophisms, Withered and spun to intentional…

the road of no light, the map of no road

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so out to the night, and turning out the stars, so nothing can last, and nothing is taken in

Pieces of the poet

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This is the poem you leave behind that you die in the middle of.

bucket of keys

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I imaged him at his mother's house, eating chicken and tabouli with her at her round marble table, leaning back and laughing, then reading my “love you” and excusing himself to cry in the bathroom.

It’s a compromising situation...

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It’s a compromising situation... The would be Bride of Christ begins perspiring before the crowd. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring echoes through the antique church just one more time, a little loud. With every added verse and every flickering vigi

Unintentional Hermits/ Animal Cities- The Helper

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So this was how it started. The next day Kia returned to sit with him a bit and the next day and the day after that until the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Eventually she found out his name was Saul, that he had no 'proper' job, was o

Action she feels as folly, I respond

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Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships.

Carmen Scarpino, Pioneering Wise Guy, Dead at 78

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Breasts were developed after World War II, the result of improved nutrition and the additional muscle mass that “Rosie the Riveter”-types acquired through manual labor in jobs that males abandoned to join the war effort.