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For As Long As We Both Shall Live

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"Of course I know," Aidan rocked him gently in his arms. "I know, and I don't care. You need help carrying that stuff around, cause it really sucks to carry it around alone. I know, I've watched you. But baby, we're in this together now."

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.

Modes of Motion

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I saw an ocean drained and filled / at the flats of Saemangeum.

Edward Ogle the Second

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doomsday kittens

Shell

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a wingover a dark sealooking up from what you're doingwhat you're not doinglooking upseeing what I don't seeor the same thingalteredwhen I was eightI cut my foot on a sea shellblood is red sea waterput a shell to your earyou'll hear your own bloodhowling in the night…

It is I, Hamlet, King of the Crabs

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Ronnie comes home carrying two sacks of groceries, one including a four-pack of Virgil's root beer. This is heavy stuff. It amazes me she is able to carry these items up our steep hill, nearly a mile in distance. I watch the news on our French cable station while she…

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.

The Happiest Place

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

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…

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.

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."

Please Do Not Blame Me

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I was disappointed with love, and like everyone else, stammered out of love into a place horrified with meaning.

Admonition

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

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…

for want of water

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you shimmered me with attention

Rock the Rhombi

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This is the place you need a third hand

Lower-order Mammals

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they'd turned into humans overnight

The Boss

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When I was eighteenI worked at a convenient storeAnd the owner was from PakistanAnd he dressed well and Smelled of cologneAnd owned two storesAnd was always going back and forthBetween the two of themHe had to make sure we were doingOur jobsAnd whenever some kid…

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. …

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

My Great Sensitivity

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I'm mucked now for sure. No one's going to discover my difficult poems in a locked away desk drawer somewhere after the dying fact. I remember how it feels to be knocked out by someone standing next to me in a simple white dress. This…

Killing Joy

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In certain sense most fractured in each part, the whole Resolves itself more central, but I sense no calm In the cyclone's eye, the forest of the soul, Where plants this eidolon of poisoned charm. This is the secret of the hurricanes, reaping Out from…

We Are Not Just A Bit of Irrelevant Pollution

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"It's hard to make a man understand something if his livelihood depends on him not understanding it."--Upton Sinclair I understand what Zappa was saying,about broken hearts and assholes, but, well, reallywhat if yours is already broken and already…

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.…

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.”

Nesting Code

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scratches

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.