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War Story: Alternate Duty II - crash landing

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I was only allowed ten hours in the tower a month so the Army in its infinite wisdom gave me lots of alternate duty which in the I-Corp area mostly meant loaning me to the Marines. That worked out because the alternate duty the Army came up with tended to

That Does Me Good

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Your clothes had been burned and your skin washed. They kept your boots at my firm insistence. I saw them write your name on the card. The card was black, and the ink was black. The writing was shallow and scratchy. The box they filed the card into was black and so…

Split Decisions

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Many colored eyes move slow between the mirror and my heart, begging questions. I offer no explanation. None suffice to breed either my content or theirs.

Tendrils

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you stand ashore

Ethereal

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and any stain or streak/ is as you will or wish it

Lazarus argentatus

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They take the blue man out on a stretcher, stiff in cyanotic repose until the paramedics shake him. He sits bolt upright, startled, confused, indignant. ‘Lazarus?' I ask. ‘Argyria. Happens every fucking time he naps on the …

gravelortian part 14

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He was an old cat

Edith Head's Heady Day

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Rain dressed for winter, a win, she thought

The Roses of Gettysburg

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Mothers and sons and war, an old story...

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.…

QuaintAugust 2017

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

The Art of Pizza

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He’d eaten every kind of pizza from the most sublime to the foulest.

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

Five Million Yen: Chapter 34

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Al-Sidran pulled out a switchblade knife from his pocket and proceeded to carefully cut open the box. Ben could tell it was razor sharp by the way it cut through the packing tape and cardboard.

The Flame Child

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Lupe drove. She didn't know where she was going, but still she drove. The Mustang whined because she did not shift gears. The street was wet from a night rain and if…

To Sleep

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The woman wrings her hands again and again, reaching up to place one under her chin, then to her cheek as though there is some pending trepidation no one else can see...

Burying the Tramp

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Heaven and hell. Hadley believed in neither. One way or another you’re a meal ticket for someone, best to be the one spending than the one being spent. The worms and insects are getting their meal ticket now, that’s for sure.

Bands

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Soccer Tease Nerdvana Ballsa Wood Pulp Friction Spam Folder Fetal Position Wayne Newton’s Yacht Late Bloomers Sir Real Geese

Mirage

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the old once new me

Love Letter From a Content Writer

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This was supposed to be a love letter written by a content writer, then it just got weird.

Fly n' Jelly

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Listening for a chain saw with one ear and to Todd and the trooper with the other, I’m trying to hustle up and finish my business - sweating in my coat and sweatshirt - and I think this: not so silly now, is it, this invisible or being able to fly choice?

taken

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today somewhere by water this photograph of a woman

China

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Your words broke meLike a china vase dropped to the floorAnd though the pieces were recoveredStuck together with love and compassionThe cracks are there for those who lookI was happy to be there, content in that placeYou wanting to be somewhere elseNever telling me where…

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.

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…

A Waltz Viennese

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We made a plan to see each other to chat more and so we did. I went to his little house in the neighboring town and walked in to a kind of time warp. It was a large living room, made so by it's emptiness. It was stark in the vastness it seemed, but dark.

Ask the Language Monitor

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A woman I work with is always going on about her daughter is an expert water-skier and has a collection of antique thimbles and makes prize-winning congo bars.

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…

Magdalene's dream

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That night Magdalene dreamt about Jesus.

Best blurb (pitch) -- and thanks, Sally and Prickly

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The author's note explains...