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The Madness of Mass Dance

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Outbreaks of mass communal dancing—sometimes referred to as “choreomania”—occurred in Europe with some frequency in Europe between the 14th and the 18th centuries.

Horizon

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Over the electronic horizon at an invisible distance nuclear reactors melt like ice cream and release tiny black lines of radiation that wriggle in the air like worms

For all we know, we'll never meet again...

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Jillian speeds across the stone wall, the hem of her dress flaps violently behind her. Sometimes she stands with her back fully erect letting perpetual motion guide her down a bend with her sun blonde locks brightening the dreary sky, or she lurches her

Open Face

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All the time I'm eating I can't help but think of the many different tuna melts I have ordered in diners and coffee shops and how each of them disappointed me...

Destiny Knocking - 2

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. . . why did it take so long?

Max Beckmann Poem

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the unutterable things of this world

Brexit

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Reams of saggy bunting intersect the streets.

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

OUR NEXT BREAK

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You welcome the new girl by putting a message on her back. I breathe harder until she pops or until you ask me what I’ve seen or until you see my hand turn into a fist.

(2) 77 Words (pcs.)

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The sometimes shiver that arrives from awkward silences and the more often cold that comes from midwestern winters.

~vantage~

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i could smell it,  my scalp split on that same damn nail,  i hammered down 20 times, it kept coming loose  that warped floorboard  i never should have tacked in  when i built this house. it always squeaked  at the base of the stairs when i snuck

The Harrisburg

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“Gliese Base Twelve, come in. Gliese Base Twelve, this is the Harrisburg. We have a level five emergency. Requesting immediate assistance.”

The Rider

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"The rider rode his bike in Arizona just about every day and for all the usual reasons....."

Commander of the Armies of the Four Winds

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"Commander of the Armies of the Four Winds" concerns a nightmare endured by Commander Daniel Bennett of the San Diego Police Department after he is assigned to recover the stolen Necromancer Artifact, which purports to invoke nefarious spirits imprisoned

Climate Change

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Every year I have a birthday, and every year another of my friends succumbs to cancer or suicide. That's a shitty gift. That is devoutly not to be wished.

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.

Leda, After the Swan

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I do not jerk up to sirens birds doorbell shouts hello hello through the letterbox hello

The Rumble Strip

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But, The Driver talked about speed. Something about pulling her off easy or we’ll blow our tires. “No telling what’s off that shoulder,” he’d say.

Deviance

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I tried to enlighten them. For my trouble, they tried to have me deprogrammed. I condemned their narrowness of mind; they pitied me my naiveté. I ridiculed their religious bourgeois complacency, but they really didn’t know what I was talking about.

Juicy | In the Umbra

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He licks his lips and mouths the air, salivating, unashamed of his propensity for the round, pink grapefruit, the almost egg-shaped oranges, the firm, juicy tangerines.

Convenience

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I drove all night, but there weren’t nothing Roy Orbison about it. I’d been driving and around lunchtime I just thought I might stop by Shona’s place.

I Am the Cheap Man

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I considered my choices, then asked the question that has brought my wife so much pain over the years. "Which is cheaper?"

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

Zero

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The arithmetic of human experience/ is always a losing game for some. Poor Jane. Rich Dick.

The Good Son

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They’ve deduced she’s still of sound mind and body. What do they know?

A Shower of Rain

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You have at least an intermittent belief.

The Breakable Bonds

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I signed up for functional I did not ask for this mixed bag of broken glass I have enough to swallow

Frankenstein's Monster Eats the Brains of Virgins at the Witches' Chainsaw Orgy Massacre

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If Heaven holds forth its own Infinity, What of selves, of ours, could we stand to see? Cradled with harsh fangs of Memory, Deep forgetfulness, give rather me- Let bright dreams be our self's divinity: Forever holds, in morrow's hours, such little…

Post-apocalyptic Fable # 8

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Crouching like little children in a game of hide & seek, we entered the old house, slowly

Lionheart

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It has been two days since nearly seven billion people have gained some extent of super powers and I figure it will only be one or two until they tear this planet asunder. I have had to move from my third story loft and take refuge in the basement of my apartment complex.…