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tremendous thousand years' charisma

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Okay, I’ll admit it, the earth was shaken on the world's underside, when you left for California. And I sometimes slept on the shores of Lake Michigan and Fox River for your tremendous thousand years’ charisma. To say I cried out in pain would be lettin

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

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.

What I'd Have to Call My 'Meatsack Family'

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This story is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional and should not be inferred. (Really!)

Blank Checks

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Then he said something that really made sense, said he kept a blank check in his back pocket...

Nothing Much

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

Seasons of You

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Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall, the Good Lord made them all.

Moving Out

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

Kafka, Smashed

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perhaps I am only being transported not for replacement but for repair

The Invention of a Curse Word

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I saw his face

Everybody Was a Virgin Once

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Most women simply don’t want damaged goods. That’s a fact I’ve been brought face to face with throughout my life. It's something you can continue crushing your brains against, like an impossibly high hurdle. At first you take the damage without unde

The Anchorman

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Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of what we mean when we say "Tsunami: A Very Bad Thing."

(Withheld) 1970

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The Moon The hatch of the lunar module hissed as it opened, a few puffs of leftover water vapor escaped toward them in a sparkling white cloud that rapidly dissolved…

Mo Band Names

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Her Majesty’s Glasses Umbilical Chord Linger Finger Okay Inkjet The Dragon Flies Horny Free Spirit Good Footnote Buttery Clams You’reUp Empty Bladder Star Butter Karmic Impulse Mr. On-the-Ve

A Tale

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But you don’t know how to fly, Bunny! How ever will we survive?

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…

Initial doubts

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"Well, you certainly can't be marrying him then .. "

A New Thing

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I am trying very hard to rhyme, and trying very hard not to.

Year End Closeout: Buy One, Get Seven Free.

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It’s not that cold but the cold that is/ penetrates layered cloth and soft skin/ to chill the blood in its capillaries

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.

Rubber Chains

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He turned metal chains to rubber with the force of his mind. He prepared tacos for the paperboy.

Return to the Nudist Camp

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I know you probably don’t want to hear any more of this nudist stuff about my family and all, but this Reamer guy was a red-faced German boozehound if there ever was one. He married my brother’s ex-wife Beryl, after Harris left her to her cheap red jug wi

Chalky goes to night school and studies the Classics

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I don’t even want to think about Aethra shtupping Posiden and Aegeus

Pieces of the poet

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

The Days, the Weeks

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Next morning the thought crosses my mind of snapping Mom’s neck, making sure she’s dead, and then running down to the sea to drown myself.

Disappointed Dust

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The particles of dust didn't want to be looked at

Mr. Feisty Mischievous

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His nervous cackle makes me sick - Oh, if only - Times were different - That knife - Would fit so nicely in his back

Variations on a Theme by Pina Bausch

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Threads of sadness in the hands, in the touch

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…

PROMISES

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There was a bird on the windowsill, a sparrow, its silhouette backlit by a view of Uptown. She remembered many sparrows during her forced trips to Mercy Hospital...That was all over now...