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LIES

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When I was nine years old, I fell through the rotting boards that covered my grandmother's cesspool and nearly drowned.

The Stuffy Poet

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Getting up and reading his poem The stuffy poet sitting back down On the leather couch, which creaks under his weight After adjusting his narrow tie from the 1980’s The stuffy poet clearing his throat, twice, During an enemy’s reading The s

Christmas Potluck

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"I see how little kids might find you creepy," she says between red velvet bites...

Summer XVI

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It was the truth, you'd say. Then someone else would step in, someone who knew the situation. It wasn't long before the entire population of our sleepy little town became accustomed to your routine. It was even welcome in some circles. Those circles were made up…

Christ's Fingertips

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they could be barefoot bastard children for somebody else to clothe

No Rocks On This End

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Take a flying leap?Mother would never agreeSo away from the campground we sneakTo show the boy where I was a boySummer day shirtless with swimsuits onOne hundred degrees walking through the treesThe season early with winter runoffWater here still seventy feet deepHoping the…

Have to Find a Way

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I have to find a way To evolve To become To grow into something else To become something else I have to find a way To let go Loosen my firm grasp Watch it all fall away Let myself fall away Drop this act This weight This mess of a life This mess I…

Miss Miriam

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Miriam smiled as I entered through the old, creaky metal front door of her home. She sat still, face marked of deep wrinkles, tense with the pain only another cancer patient would understand. In that soft, sweet, melodic voice, she greeted me. '"Hello Ms. Monica, I've been…

The Skill in Gravity

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the ones that have seen the other seasons, let them set up the track

The Toilers

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In the black not dead of night, she gathers them; slowly,diligently placing the cansand bottles into two large plasticbags strung across a long piece of wood; this is her money work. She is small, but her bodyhas the choreography down:sift, search, lift,…

BODY OF CHRIST, Chapter One

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The sound wasn’t coming from her dream, it was coming from inside the house. Somewhere outside her bedroom the noise was gaining power. Each pitch climbed higher with the urgency of a smoke alarm. With hands over ears and a hazy brain she got up from her

Nineteen in '72

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bursting girl there is no moon

HEART MONITOR

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They were afraid that the spiders would crawl up their slim, u-shaped gaps and get inside them. He wasn’t sure how it would happen to her, just that it was possible

The Prompter

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Here is a not remembering

For my Unknown Love

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I still remember the old times when we were together. I wish I wouldn't have let you go. If you ever thought that we should be together, please come back.

Sunday Evening, 4:23AM

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The rhythm of my breathing is a litany of regret.

Coal Mine Pickle Jar

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I can’t move - I try to move my arms - I try to move my legs - If I can scream then that will wake me up - I scream

The Unseen Hand Shuffles the Deck

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2008Not a bubble burstbut a trust ruptured.The guilty don't survivebut, rather, thrive. 2011The monied are superior.They game the system well.As we work harder, longer,their paper fortunes swell.2017Marie and Louie were monied once.The Romanovs as well.Fast as blades and…

Words

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often visit me in my room, so quietly, so suddenly, buzzing my head with wonderful, possible sentences. Sometimes I find they've been there radiating all along, children ready to burst out in a sneaky fit of laughter if I move just slightly…

Neatly Creased Newspapers

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A thin line separated her lips, like something sketched with a pencil.

Edward Ogle the Second

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doomsday kittens

Things being said

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Things are still being said in a world that sounds like rough bows and straight slicing arrows communicating with (smashing like fists) a poor pool of tired animals. There must also come a time to surprise these same cruel machines…

You Can Look Up Everything on Reality TV

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Caution, the beer on the shore is lapping at the foam of sanity, and the wind in the trees is speaking thy previous names. Caution, a rise in the ocean will soak your dress above your knees, causing infinite tears, infinite hopes

Identity

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We’re forty-three.

I HEART INTERNET

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What can I say about the Internet It's one of the best inventions since the TV set It's a place you can do research and shop A place where you can sell everything from shoes to stock You can go to rooms and chat And meet some nice people or some that seem…

Poetry Hour at the Regional House of Pancakes

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The waitress appears and Fred gives her a big smile and th3 once over. It's no wonder he's had so many women in his life while I've . . . uh . . . read a lot of books.

The Judge's Wife Part 7

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—A little blood puts some life into the work, said the old artisan smiling.

Cato

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She was the clerk in the photography shop.

Our Enormous Fat Man

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Pity would have been appropriate. Yet, townsfolk whispered behind his back. Shouldn't he do something about it. So lazy. A gluttonous swine. Hadn't his mother kept him too long at tit, breastfeeding ‘til four? Look. Look at him now. A fat man. Our enormou

If I Was a Bum

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If I was a bum I’d risk everything For a drink or a smoke. I would beg and curse and steal If I was a bum. If I was a bum I would cuss out the Pope. I would not vote for anyone Because I would know truly They’d be telling gross lies.