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The Linguist

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I let the little fingers slip thinking they couldn't stand to hold on anymore. When they were done they said addled and I was left behind in the room with only my hand. I hurt myself trying to picture the pretty girls and they took out a piece above my eye. …

77 Words About Nothing (4.05.2012)

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I sold my ego to pay a parking ticket. And then I wrote 77 words about mental health.

The Happiest Place

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I normally don't photograph well, but today – well, today's different.

Handicapping the Saints

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I've been a fan of hagiography—the lives of the saints—since first grade when Claude Dunham and I were asked to represent St. Stephen and St. Sebastian, two martyrs of the early church, in a tableau vivant of bored boys.

War Bride

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Maria met her husband in World War Two. Maria is now eighty-two. She is from the country of Tuscany. She has lived in may countries. She was a war bride. She has a son. Maria's son is sixty-three. As a baby-boomer he won't retire until sixty-five Maria says.…

Cato

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She was the clerk in the photography shop.

The Sadness That Can Be Gulliver’s Travels

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One day, he decided instead to be-pet them,

Unfinished Journal Entries (which only goes to prove just how unprofessionally untutored I am)

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I could tell you right nowwhat I'm thinking aboutbut that would not be sacrificeenough. Takes all kinds, and youonly listen when it'ssomething you think is instantlyoverpowering. I swear, there's always something not quiteright with you. There's a silly left…

QuaintAugust 2017

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a midge smothered in the light of disarray crawls back into the sage

Five Million Yen: Chapter 61

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Dan Arris sat in Chez Colette enjoying a roulade of veal stuffed with root vegetables. He was not a happy man.

Witness

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Someone must bear witness// at a comfortable remove.

Admonition

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Let routine/ propel you through/ the day after/ the day before.

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, lxxiii - lxxxi

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proper words fail to get proper points across . . . truthful words have no beauty,/beautiful words have no truth.

9 January

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Side morning lightthrough hydrangea crab, reachand shine off patio ice

Edward Ogle the Second

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doomsday kittens

Lower-order Mammals

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they'd turned into humans overnight

Confidence

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one day the words will form an order, one day the words will make a rhyme, one day the words will make a meaning

Long Night, Hard Night

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It had been a long night, a hard night. The sky had been filled with blackened clouds, patters of wind snapping and whipping like a pirate's flag hung at full mast. Rain beat…

She Looked In the Mirror And Saw Something Different

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Even raw as she looked coming out of the jail, the woman left echoes.

Untitled

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the colors of the night

The Babies

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We jam into the green tent as it begins to rain. His casket is covered with flowers and there is the picture you took of him, the day you climbed the fire tower from where you could see forever, past his smiling face the bars and a million changing leaves.His pregnant girl…

Payments

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What it was for, didn’t matter. When Susan walked into Fred’s house every few weeks and start talking, he’d just nod and say, “Sure, I know how tough it is out there, baby.” Then they’d drink some wine and put on some music, and he’d give her a little mon

In and Out

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Emma held her arm up to John’s eyes. He looked, nodded. “My burns are on the inside,” he told her. “I’ll never show you.”

Get Thee to a Nunnery

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I was in a nunnery wondering how I wound up in the midst of so many nuns as it wasn't my nature to hang out with nuns. I find them tedious and redundant, though I do have to say I appreciate their economy with words. You never really saw a…

Motorized Elderly Armageddon

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Oldies are not goodies.

Three Easy Steps:the little genuine things in life/sauteed whole peppers/easy roof repair

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So, once, we were all like sitting around the kitchen table, and it was so kind of like an okay sort of day to begin with. We were all like a secret theater of strangers, a living children's secret circle, meeting right in…

just because the maker of the tracks and the tracks themselves are invisible doesn't mean there's nothing there

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breathe out somewhere a tree falls

Elk Hunters

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"Damn! All I've got is a hundred dollar bill."

Portrait of a Dead Princess

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Extrapolate, interpolate/ to add imaginary flesh// to fragmentary bones.

Garbage in, garbage out

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Sam tapped the stick against the small mountain of trash bags, a dull thud predictably followed by a dozen rats scurrying out of the mass. He's started to make a personal game of it — seeing how many he can kill with one whack; if he swings hard enough, and in…