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by the sound of it

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cicadas run our furnace

Darkness On My Mind

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Darkness on my mind doesn't make me blind.

Ave Maria: Part 6

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“I swear that man is a force of nature.” This was her mother's way of describing her father whenever her mother came too close to the precipice. While growing up, she could never allow herself to fully acknowledge the meaning behind her mother's…

Rags to Riches to Rags, 1

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1 Al Capone was ruling the backstreets and alleyways of Chicago during Prohibition, and we lived in a little house right next door to a speak-easy. I could peak through our curtains and see right into the bar next door when cops came in to get pai

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.

How To Give Dating Advice as a State Social Worker

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I tell him if he wants to impress a girl he should learn to cook. He shifts his body. I add, crab cakes work well.

Hey, Boys, Bandits!

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I remember one time that summer I was with you (1964) going to a bar in maybe it was Melrose Park, or Northlake, or somewhere along Roosevelt Road closer to Chicago, not as far as Cicero though. I went there with a crazy gear-head named Roger Hudson, wh

Mark Twain's Typewriter

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Did I refer to Mark Twain’s typewriter as an animal? Did I call it a hyena? I would not say that about Mark Twain’s typewriter.

Ohio Man Charged with Drunken Driving on Motorized Barstool

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A man in Watchupecka, OH, was charged Wednesday night with drunken driving in heavy traffic in downtown Watchupecka when he failed to stop for a red light.

Decoy

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No one saw him arrive at the half-moon garden just south of Delancey, no one saw him hang his cage from one of the drainage pipes, but by the time the rest of us got there, the bamboo frame was already covered with silky, golden cloth that reflected the e

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

Blonde on Blonde

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Happens at a party, this way, past frat boys perched in branches like idiot hoot owls,

Moving Out

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

The 0th Parallel

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These are the days you wish would never end.

YMCA

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absolute bullshit

Control

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I’m afraid

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

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Eva stepped out of the hut she and Javier shared and slogged through the mud toward the coop to fetch fresh eggs for Javier's breakfast. None existed. Javier became angry when he didn't get his eggs. Eva slowed her pace as she neared the door. She knew wh

The Black Madonna

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They say I am filthy. On this high pillar I perch like a stuffed avian relic, flightless, no prey. The horizon before me is broken by scuff and foreign tongue, by atomized evil. Pleas, and there are many, are answered by the only prayer I know, the one prayer, which…

A Conversation on an Empty Balcony

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I go with the wind, like the smoke of this Marlboro red as it dances among the palm trees.

Who Set Off the Liberal Detectors?

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I sense that I may have won a few hearts and minds with my stirring peroration. "Can I get anybody a Republican Party beer koozie to take home?"

Assiduity Eighteen

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A convoy of military vehicles is heading into the city as we are heading out.

The Cowboy of My Heart

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I. The cowboy of my heart rides high in the saddle. Behind him, the long tail of his speeding palomino, golden — like the hair to the girls I was later to want so desperately — stands straight out from his sweating, muscular haunches. It's time.…

Famus Peepul

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Famus Peepul Ellen and her boy, Larson, were on the second floor of The Monsters restaurant, searching for the fortuneteller. Larson had decided her signature was a necessary addition to his autograph book. He hadn't asked for her autograph…

Event Particle

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She is a manifold of temporal flows.

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.

A New Thing

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

Times Remembered

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Delightful days spent at the beach. Children building castles; as parents watched waves glistening under the afternoon sunlight. Sanderlings running with beaks down, hoping for a tasty morsel through the ebb and flow of tides. As time went by, briefcases,…

Rapid Transit

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We’re on The Worm. I dread the part where the train goes under the bay. I hold my breath until we safely emerge.

Sorrow

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It's not a funeral. Nobody to mourn over.