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the trenchant lad & the mechanical men

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A man walks on the moon my mother knew at Purdue.

Weather

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I liked E first because she knew all the words to "Alice's Restaurant." Everybody knows "American Pie," but "Alice's," that's impressive. We used to cut class in high school and drive around listening to it, and I'd try to pretend I knew the words, but I never did, so…

noise

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I am naked in an upright glass box with water running through my hair and over my skin. I am in there when the old man who invited himself into our house for six long months (because no one had the nerve to tell him to leave) opens a door and stands…

Trans

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so much of what we know with certainty is amazingly uncertain

The Ones Who Are Left Behind

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The women, I think, Handle it better than The men. The men just stare Straight ahead Vacantly Hollow-eyed Lonely. The women more Fulfilled by their lives, Having always Expressed their love. The men, Not so much. And find

Craigslist 2014

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Craigslist 2014?

A Child is Born

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I came out of the Quick Stop and found her in the back seat of my ten-year-old Camry. I don’t know who she is, or why she chose my car. I do know she’s having a baby any minute now.

Holding It In

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I really need to go to the bathroom.

FULL NEST

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Every time I look at you there are two dumb mouths that slip between stretch marks.

Night Terror

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A door in the hallway, with 30E in brass letters glinting dully on its polished surface, lying sideways on the floor like a beacon.

Thanksgiving

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Unless we see it, probe it, Name it, star by star, and feel This awful, tenuous gratitude.

better than perfect

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i mean the perfect setting is great and all the right lighting very little the right music she says kings of leon i say broken social scene with nothing but time and a large bed with balled up sheets and us but i love early morning fluorescent bathroom light…

Buddies to the End

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“Tell me how sad they are.”

Dream of the Feast

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I’d caught a small fish but there wasn't enough room on the bridge to reel it in completely so I carried it hanging from my pole along the edge of the traffic A fine black dog joined me following me into the shack at the end of the bridg

This Pretty Business

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Oh it's another one of those strange thrill rides slowly building from a buzz saw whisperinto cool morning's consciousness, coming on and crawling through the moon's mattress like a silver stream and under the dented pillow where…

Prayers and Lotteries

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“What if every cloud you saw carried a bit of hope?” she said to the window, looking out at a rolling storm. There's something peaceful about stormy weather when you're inside. Stormy weather. It almost sounds quaint. “Well?” she said,…

There is No Logic in the Immediate Fact

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of a strangely found desire. I wanted to tell you something important, I'm sure, I mean it's pretty obvious, even in this funny breathing space, but everything has been said to death. More isn't always…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 38

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—Francesco, I wish you would give up smoking, said Michiko.

Regrets du Noir

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You want to be Teilhard de Chardin? You’re getting started way too late. There’s a better chance you’ll be tomorrow’s Peking Man if I bury you in the cellar.

Couch Potato Blues

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Whenever I get the urge to write a poem I try to talk myself out of it.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 28

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Ben watched Monique disappear into the first-class cabin. It didn’t seem likely that he would see her again after this flight.

At the Christmas Carol Bar

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I’ll take my Christmas carols neat-

The Time Traveler

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The Time Traveler had been gone but a minute, when Filby, combing his fingers through his ginger hair, turned to the Psychologist and proclaimed, “That’s the last we shall see of him.”

Pets

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But in the dust bunny there was an equally relentless and sneaky foe. A brilliant General that silently marshaled its troops under tables and chairs, in obscure, shadowy corners, and along the unsuspecting flat surface of things.

120 Years

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It has been speculated that his failure to become either a recognized artiste or a blockbuster director is what ultimately led him, when the opportunity presented itself, to upload his consciousness.

1

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That evening, my friend and I were at a McDonalds'. It was late in the evening, and we got together after she sent me a text message she meant to send to someone else. I got a burger. She got fries.

Tragedy and Wreck

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By the time the third car disappeared, Bud had noticed sudden lulls in the breeze, rain microbursts from otherwise blue skies, cold humid calms that trailed him around the junk.

A Whole

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You sawed off my wings then Asked

Freedom

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His senses were heightened. The scratching on the table with his finger nails, intense nervousness, the noise magnified every second, the ball point pen was piercing into his sweaty palm.

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.