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Angels and Inspiration

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It was then an angel was sent to provide assistance and guidance. After the first time, with the radio show, the woman could almost feel her presence. When she did not know what to do, or needed help or to encourage others, when her own will and words wer

What was your first Combat Mobile Team experience?

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My first Combat Mobile experience was as the only Specialist in an ATC ("air traffic control") assignment. The rest of the squad were simple grunts lead by the massive Sergeant James T. Adams, Regular Army, the ghost of the Central Highlands. Sgt. Adams m

We are the miserable

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We are the miserable, annoyed, dismayed sick. We slouch on black naugahyde chairs too pathetic to reach for magazines. The computer is down the young receptionist has explained to each of us in young, florid style, complete with “I…

Forevergrad

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The man was sitting at his makeshift kitchen table. He was forty-five years old. He wore his mortarboard with tassel whenever he left his home. Once inside either a reputable establishment or one generally considered less so, he was sure to take off his m

WE TURNED THE SAFETY OFF

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It’s not like I could tell anyone. I hum a song my mother sang to me as a child. A dressed-up soprano to calm the tail I’ve grown.

Seamus Has the Palsy Now

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Seamus’ hands are shaking now that once were still as stalking cats.

His Bus

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He'd always considered it his bus.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 73

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The pawnbroker sat behind bulletproof glass at the rear of the display area, a veritable potentate of hope and cash, exchanging expendable items for derisory cash.

Punkin Head

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The old neighborhood, long paling in the shadow of greater Los Angeles, was reduced to two blocks in length and occupied only one side of Figueroa. It was the crumbling bastian of homes whose architecture remembered yet street-car bells clanging, watermelon farms and…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 57

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—Christ all mighty, said Ben to himself as he watched Isabella and Leona enter the bank. Those are some extraordinary examples of female flesh.

Feb 5

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He peels the garlic while I stir the lentils; he chops the cilantro while I peel kale leaf from stem. Also, the rings. Also, no one is going anywhere.

President Liz

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I fancy myself a spy. Unofficial official of the H. O. A. Super secret free agent agent of the Glenwood Homeowner's Association. Even the board is unaware of the work I do in their name, without the faintest utterance of their name. Only the highest of the high, the…

Saint Basil's

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The last of the Kazan Tatar Khans. Each dome represents a severed head.

Occupy This!

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faking an orgasm

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There’s an account of roasting inward, holding myself like a rock inflamed, my inward joy rotting my veins. How was I supposed to go on loving anything after you? Like a pigeon hated at home, awaiting your passionate kisses? Knowing how your classical k

black

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my soul is black and it's deep like heartbreak and heavy as stone and as thick as ink and it is pressing on top of me like last nights one night stand like dead weight so that I can't lift my arms or spread my legs it feels like I am walking through mud but it's…

the Case of the Smelly Rug Adventure

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I didn't know what to do, really, but I had to do something. After all there was no one left to be the real bona fide hero to this story, except for me, the guy who wasn't any kind of a hero at all. I mean I could hardly move an inch, rolled…

Professor University

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Is this a tenure track position?

Seamstress

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The cab split the thread of oncoming traffic into water barrels and telephone poles.

The American Dream: An Update

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Last time I saw the American Dream was Tuesday, down at the Unemployment Office. He was looking pretty worn out, as if being unemployed for over a year was finally getting to him.

Flower Power

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"Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels."--William Carlos WilliamsThere is something beautiful I want to say to you that doesn't seem to make much more sense in a box of clever words like this one. It feels closer to…

Clockwork and Sex Appeal

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And her life runs like clockwork. And the kids wouldn’t get to school without her, and the paychecks wouldn’t arrive and the taxes wouldn’t get paid. And she listens to religion and country and God telling her how to run her life, what to do and when. B

Change of Heart

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They pumped him full of electricity and waited.

Dreamless

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We call it the alley of the shadows, the low sunless concavity of earth between the stalks, the acrid scent of the ripened arrow-points.

Airport Hotel

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We construct what we want, from what has failed in the past. We thought this worked. The picture was buzzing for me and I tried to hold on. I went blindly forward.

Dixon Ticonderoga - 2 5/10 medium

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gotta love a pencil

Coyote Captured Outside Lower Manhattan Café

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I heard the patron yelling, “Hey, man! That’s my cappuccino!” when the young female snatched it and got away. But the police cornered her a few blocks away, licking the last bits of foam off her wiley whiskers. That’s how they knew they had

An Excoriated Sensibility

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The machines of her perception/ tuned themselves to frequencies// that peeled her skin and fatty tissue

Why Go Outside?

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Why go outside where the gutters / are fraudulent and clogged with popularity?

Call Me

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The woman took a small note card from her purse and wrote on it. She then stood, handed the card to the doctor, and said, “Call me.”