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And then we... Part 2

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The way I figure it, mom wasn't worth a shit. I'd cry when she hit me but she'd just keep pounding. When I was seven, she burned a hole in my back. It happened one day at the fair. We were walking around. She didn't have any money so all we could do was walk. I had…

Cold, Cold Night

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I thought I heard Follow your heart On the cold, cold Night of the soul I thought I heard Follow your heart, follow your heart On this coldest night Of the soul Leaves on fire, leaves on fire They told me look Into the flames To

Snakes

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“Gaudy talking, ordination, high finance and politicking won’t save you. Moshaka zumbrala!” screamed Pastor Cleon Wrunk.

An Absolute Doll

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“Oh, I shouldn’t complain, I guess, but she did tend to get a leetle bit too caught up in that Hindernet thing, but I suppose that’s something younger people do today. Why, she didn’t even hear me when I would ask her for something! Can you imagine?”

Hela Hey Aloha

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“Everyone you see is half asleep. And you're on your own, you're in the street.” -John Lennon What we can muster now is a few choice words of humor, but unfortunately that won't show them anything that they haven't seen…

Optimum Condition

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I have hate and it is black not midnight, crisp fresh clear. Unadulterated. It is dirty, poor, gritty solid rough like unripe stone fruit. A peach, mealy and dry. The killing, effete, endures. Silent, my repugnance, sick, eats…

Industrial Revelation

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I tell my students about a timewhen seniority was told by the number of fingers on a worker's hands No weekends or overtime, children — bare toes dangling — twelve hours on the line I look for…

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.

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

Pacific

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this orient tide come occident: this roll of wreck and reckoned eyes that fathomless are found or made to find her keep within the tight shut shell in soundings deeper than the plumblined soul these western waves gone east: these…

how to live on coffee and prayers

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The coffee filter rustles like the Pages of your notebook, which Only tires you even more. Make your drink strong to Make up for the lack of resolve In your shoulders, and Your weak promises. The familiar sound of percolation And you reach the…

Politicouscous II

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In which era was it not a scary world?/ Last century, the perils were both red and yellow/ after Jerry was undone. Now, they’re brown/ and cross, without respect, the Rio Grande

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…

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…

The Sea of Dreams

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When I wake, I wonderwhat leaves the smile haunting my lips.There is only a ghostly remnant of your eyes, your touch, your kiss. Now I long for the Sea of Dreams,but my body is here imprisoned.Awake, I cannot reach you.The ship has departed; the tides have…

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

Afton Mountain

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fog settles over the mountain laying a ghostly blue shroud

After Appomattox

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The renegade states- Virginia, Georgia,/ Texas, and the rest- should have lost their names

Good Use

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I found a field where all the unanswered prayers were once buried but someone someone someone had dug them up again and was putting them to good use

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.

First Crush

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I wanted those jelly rolls so bad I could scream

Blades of Grass

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What are the odds of August rain in Texas?

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 7

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The family castle, Krivoklat, pronounced something like sheevoklat, where my maternal grandmother’s family ran a hotel, was founded in 1109 A.D. (how long our family ran the hotel business is anybody’s guess, taken over by the Nazi’s, then the C

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.

I Must Want it. No, I Must Need It.

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She rubs her head into mine...

Kathy

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"Happy New Year Willie."

A Writer Abroad

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Here’s an obvious fact: I live in Germany, but don’t speak much German. Okay, I speak very little German. Truth be told, hardly any.

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…

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…

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…