2441 1 1
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The first morning we met—I remember the rain, soft the way I like it—was a series she later attributed as a fourteen-frame sunrise.
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244022
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It's the way an earnest five-year-old boy pronounces every single letter as he whispers. Something about octopuses, something else about peas.
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24403714
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I should have created a first-date questionnaire heartaches ago.
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2440116
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(originally appeared in Lit Up)http://litupmagazine.wordpress.com/poetry/rusty-barnes/Remind me never to call youagain after you get home late,for the familiar fear of the deadbolt noise,the shifty creak of your linoleum floor,the way you throw your jacket overthe sofa and…
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243900
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Cheater was a Goblin. He carried a long knife, not quite a sword, but more than your average pocket blade.
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243932
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The pieces of bread dipped us humans in cheese,
the cheese made by cows from our milk.
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2438105
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‘In terms of relationship, I am your Father – my name is the Emperor’.
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2437197
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"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.'--Nadine Gordimer Other things do matter just as much of course. Of course they do. Hey I'm still kind of alive inside this poem here. At least I'd like to think so, so yes another…
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243653
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That was the first time I went over the wall. No bird opened its mouth to chirp. No wind blew. I staggered a little on the stony edge.
And dropped down. I changed in a cafe. Shaved. Emerged as that rare thing: a new man. My clothes were old, saved for
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2436117
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"They called him a syllannibal: a person who eats his own words. The only words he ever ate, however, were the ones he had written."
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243661
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“Your children are beautiful,” she said, handing back his wallet after removing several bills. Her mouth was fringed by bitten-off melon lipstick, a calm kind of mad. She told him to call her Sally, “like the song McCartney rips his lungs on.” She…
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243588
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They were a family, now, these three: child, widow, widower.
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243532
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We are the generation who tattoo our stories on our bodies, who pierce what appears impenetrable; we fly our scars like pennants.
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2435366
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I do not trust Shay anymore.
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24351714
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my foreign mouth embarrassed the teachers. my jumbled words gave people sad faces. so wrong these words of mine. even the mentally retarded girl would not talk to me. just looking at my garbled mouth made her slap herself. and my writing. oh no. my writin
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24352013
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"For God's sake," my mother said. "There could be anthrax in the candy."
My mother worried about me going out on Halloween.
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243411
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Ham
If you have never cooked a ham steak, you need not be afraid. The ham is often cut so thin that to over or undercook it is nearly impossible. The exterior reflects the centre better than any other meat; you will know when to stop.
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24341311
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they’d been pumping him
with Dilaudid at night,
to adjust his palette for what was
coming, in the soft lamp light he
watched his long fingers sprout pink
caterpillar fuzz, knuckles morphed
into hinges for Monarch butterflies,
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243494
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I hate walking into restaurants and cafes by myself to meet someone. I always feel awkward, as if no one will claim me. I'm hanging on the threshold now for an agonizing few moments scanning the room until I see my friend.“Hi!” she says, waving her cup at…
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24323724
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I ate a novel. I digested a film reel. I vomited poetry.
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243184
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I'm Icarus in Brueghel's painting. My wings as it turned out were made of wax. Mothers, tell your daughters this truth. You cannot fly so close to the sun.
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24311611
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Walking in to work from an unfamiliar direction, I saw her, on a street I had never been down before. I was coming from his place, for the first time, after the first time. The first time, but not the first date. That's not me. I'm not one to... not one who... He worked…
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243156
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He is snoring inside the silo of his throat. The inside there shines golden but that’s not the truth. There is something caught below the gold.
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243072
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Once upon a time, a young writer decided to leave his home in Iowa City, and seek wisdom in the East.
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242920
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Kelly looked at her screen. Did she really just type that? Is she really going that cliche? Apparently so. She sighed. "Well I can't erase it for fear of losing words so I might as well just go with it."
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242853
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____________________________________I get an internet connection and send this poem out in haste: Drugs, New Orleans…
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24281213
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Tomorrow the authority smashes. Tonight we march, splash, carve letters in wet paint from room to room until steel blades bend. The letters will tilt in shadows gliding over the walls to mask our tales born of fractured wrists and the ghosts, our keepers.
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24271110
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he scans the headlines of the tabloids as he waits to pay. “Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform.”
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24273114
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24261210
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'This dude’s whole life must be in this book. It’s like, a man diary.' The thought makes her laugh.
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