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Brexit

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Reams of saggy bunting intersect the streets.

Jade Cicada

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Jade in the emperor’s death mouth – to the grave – all openings closed – no breath – no air – no life to enter to leave – the end should be silent – you stop my mouth

Mating for Life

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Mari thinks that's all fine and fucking dandy.

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.

(Yet Another) Mask

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In frustration, he picked up a hammer and slammed it straight into the center of the mask.

Cause of Death

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“You sure?” He nods. “Maybe it was pneuomonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” Flash of a smile, sobbing laughter, like an abandoned seal.

A Storm A-Brewin'

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"I'm just saying," the older man continues, "We oughta be ready in case she hits." "We'll be fine," the woman says. "We've weathered every storm that's ever come through here just fine."

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 14

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“Gentlemen, how could I go about attracting the KGB?” Now that got the attention of Boris and Vladimir. Their eyes bulged right out of their heads. They both started huffing and puffing. “What are you, crazyman or something?” said Boris. Vla

Sunrise

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The musician’s wife had a roving eye. He didn't care. He liked being married to a wild and crazy woman.

It's My Birthday

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and the President didn't call.

Desire

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Dark morning sleet whitecrusts the world once more, shrouds remains of January thaw:

The Campus Socialists

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The Campus Socialists Paul and Mary Jo lived in an apartment at the top of a long, dark flight of stairs that were so high, I remember as if it were yesterday thinking, the night she pushed him down the stairs, he would surely be dead by the time h

Stump the Nuns!

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“It's a combination of ‘Survivor' and ‘College Bowl' says Sister Mary Agnesita, the show's host. “We take four very strict nuns and match them up with boys who were cut-ups in their grade school classes."

Call to Arms

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I call upon all cashiers in dungarees... I call upon the baristas in rags... I call upon those whose sinister principles tax the weakness of their conscience... I call upon all those deracinated by dreaming big...

Wheatfield with Cypresses. van Gogh

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There's no sky like that with twisting clouds shot up into by cypress trees that are so like dark green flames leaping out of the earth as if a dark green oily pool were on fire underground, and this was all that could escape, was its essence.

BACK IN THE USSUSSUSSR

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It was on the Fake News today, Oh boy They built a bridge from Alaska to Siberia Called the Bridge Over Troubled Waters Instead of a wall And Putin came riding bareback on a pink unicorn Into the White House and renamed it The White Horse,

The Incident

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There are some I don’t recognize. My gaze lingers for a second. It’s bad business this.

Duration and Frequency

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for spirits and demons have no life/ but what imagination gives

The Gatekeeper Of The Pathogens

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It was in his teeth. A blackness, a subscription to an outsideness, a painful contraction of burnt out trees scattered there among sand drifts and tidal debris. His face, lightly weathered and troubled, a tightness built into eyes of thought and separation. His arms, strong…

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…

The Vessel

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For so long as I think I shall live.

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 Fourth Prague Defenestration: 16

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I still wake up with a start to this day, remembering the sound of that squish. And the cheer from above of all the brutes hanging out the open castle window. And of course the roar of approval and delight from the hordes of Chinese, Russian, and Germ

The Key

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"No idea yet, why it was so important, what could it possibly mean to her? Was it someone who she knew, a distant relative, a character for her novel, something was just so strangely haunting about it that she could see it even when she did not have it in

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.

Waiting for Hurricane Dennis, Florida 2005

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WAITING FOR HURRICANE DENNIS, FLORIDA 2005 With soft eyes, she quizzed, shivered, said: “Where's Dad? Where's Ric? Will you leave me here alone? Are you all going to leave? Where's Peter? Do you feel all right? We're…

My Not Entirely Serious Predictions for Season Four of Sherlock

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The BBC's “Sherlock” is among the most popular shows on TV, and there has been much speculation among die-hard fans like myself about what the upcoming fourth season will hold. Having consulted my own crystal ball, here's what I see happening: Irene…

Shards

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But you're everywhere, how can I move on? It's so easy for people to say, Get over it, the ‘it' being the smell of your skin, your smile, the taste of your lips, always sweet and salty, like a carnival treat. Remember that neon night when we knew it was over, how we…

What Momma Draws on Windows

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...the woman of the sun, twelve stars around her head, the moon at her feet.

Regina Road

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I took a left, it's less safe