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dream lives and cancers

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Around sunset or sometime after, we are on the futon talking about dream lives and cancers. He asks me about my ideal living situation, my ideal career, my ideals in general. I would be a turtle, I say. I would travel and have a home I could always go to, I could always be…

Excelsior - A Poem in 9 Parts (post 4 of 5)

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VI. At Antares Alpha A pyramid carries four sides: only this one Is surmounted by a circle, and its cone Has all of what we claimed within its cargo, Or that shall never find a plan, or transit now; Though the sulphur and carmine skies that…

Main Street

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You know when you see the flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror that you're not being pulled over because of a busted taillight or carelessly doing fifty in a thirty-five mile an hour school zone; your crime is being a Black man behind the wheel. It happens often…

Wildfire

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Those resting in clusters of bones, Cradled in ashes of what once were homes.

Call to Action

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Everybody wake up and hold to those dreams you had of greatness and prosperity. Bring forth the hopes you had as a child of progressing to that ultimate goal of self-sufficiency. You are prepared for what lies ahead, the future belongs to us. Our finest…

What Goes Above Our Heads Sometimes Does Not

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We floated balloons to my dead uncle in Heaven for closure. I couldn't figure, at age seven, how he was under the ground and in the sky too. Mom touched Dad on the arm. It was Dad's brother. It seemed like Mom was sorry for something…

Confession

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As a boy Edward had stayed in the confessional several times in a row. The priest was drunk and couldn't tell it was the same kid over and over. The tiny door slid open…”Scobbity bobbity…tell me your sins…” Edward confessed what he thought were sins, then said…

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…

The Greenfather

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Italian authorities seized $1.9 billion in "green" investments made by La Cosa Nostra to launder money. Reuters

Beach Tale

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I should have worn shorts.

Tethered

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Handsome are the houses,effigies in synthetic stucco: prosperity divinedbehind parted walls. Behold the ersatz simplicityof the residential subdivision, contrived construction inline and line and line. …

Chewy

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Chewy is an old dog. His face is mostly white.

Exchange Rates for Zynga

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As with the trouble with gambling, I managed to spend beyond my self-suggested limit at the farm while wanting to do little else. It became a chase for "money" (numbers like rubles) ...

How Many Remain

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how many lighted days remain

my future, maybe yours

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She went for the typewriter first.

Babel

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As if reaching for the Divine was the problem

Five Million Yen: Chapter 10

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Ben watched the cat burglar snake his way from window ledge to window ledge.

Fortunately the Future Is Behind Us

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When you finally arrive, when you are bounced from Bingo for calling out too many false Bingos, may the mothers be there to lift the children off your soul. May you see the fiery red word Psychic above the doorway underneath the green

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.

Fortune Favours

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We're all just meat and atoms who can no more sense into the great beyond than a horse can fly a plane.

traffic incident

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and i start screaming. i check the damage in my rearview mirror but there's nothing.

Knock Knock

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The bad moods crash the door down like an overzealous SWAT team and wreck the furniture. The good moods arrive unannounced.

Bums of the Bird World

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Yeah, okay, so pigeons are the bums of the bird world So what are a flock of crows working over a wheat field while the artist Vincent is desperately trying to live with his bleeding ear or to sell at least one painting during

Crisp and New

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He told me it isn’t my fault. That my brain isn’t slowly and deliberately killing itself, not barbarically stripping away its own wiring to expose razor bursts of electricity.

Pearls

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You're trying to attract visitation in a small quarter with pearls in both your lobes. Only half of what you say is true. The red lipstick shines through like a brad on white paper, a voice, soprano. The half I tend to appreciate squanders & squalls. This is the ride…

Classic

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"I love you.”“Night.”Back at the screen door she answers “What?” I stand under her nose and say “Box is out of juice.” Inside she sits me on the black and white polka-dotted sofa we make love around here and there.…

From the Cradle

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Loss and awakening are irrevocable. Love and grief are one.

Class

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Before they ever spoke, Linda and Meg had sat next to each other in the cramped lecture hall for three weeks, their thighs touching, while Dr. Laurens showed slides of ancient Japanese art. Meg's eyes never left the screen, but Linda glanced at her as often as she…

Band Names Too

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Gun Notches Working Stiffs Garlic Torch Dog Crouch Menbrain Membrane Ein Zwei Drei Fake German Soldier Wet Tissue Tissue Paper Pants Tough Stain Adam and Evil Closed Loophole Wait For It Fiscal Cliff and the Cliffhangers Repu

A Dream in Brick

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A man walks up and faces this new red brick wall The bricks are all perfect as you might expect in a dream And the cement is tuck-pointed without a dribble, anywhere He looks at the wall and puts his head through it And when he pulls h