1198 4 3
|
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
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1198 3 2
|
This is why I’ve decided to assign myself a position in life similar to that of Stuart Sutcliffe with the Beatles.
|
1198 2 1
|
I repeated your name like a mantra
/ and vomited black bile in the sink.
/ Some Buddhist monk told me
/ if I recite it ten thousand times
/ you will be mine.
|
1198 2 2
|
The new members were asked to stand up and say their names. One obnoxious, pushy woman from L.A. stood up and said, "Ama Torrent, and I'm an alcoholic."
The roomful of people started murmuring.
Suddenly a man in his late fifties shot out of his chai
|
1198 4 2
|
And when you come back, you work minimum wage and have water cooler sex and your face is no more than archives.
|
1198 11 6
|
|
1197 0 0
|
Isaac Beauregard Lyons woke with a start as he heard the slamming of a pickup truck door then a curse from someone down on his front lawn. “Damn it Mike, be quiet!” someone shouted.
|
1197 2 1
|
—mashed potatoes / with emeralds in it—
|
1197 2 1
|
Doreen takes Butchie’s hand, steadies it in the can opener, counts “One-two-three”–and slams the chrome handle down.
|
1197 0 0
|
I got a rash under my wedding ring. I took the ring off and filed for divorce the next day. Mike begged me to stay. But when you can't trust your judgement, you have to trust the signs. Mommy had a rash like that. I used to see it in the shower. People think it's…
|
1197 1 1
|
We are diminished by our desire
for innocence, and we debase those who
possess it.
|
1197 4 4
|
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
|
1197 0 0
|
He was pretty much packed, one large suitcase full, two crates of albums, one duffel bag. He had to leave room for the three riders he would pick up on his way, one in St. Louis, two in Columbia.
|
1197 5 0
|
I remember seeing five young losers standing outside this bar, smoking cigarettes in their baggy shorts and flip-flops, giving the occasional high-fives. They weren’t even eating their calzone, and I was getting upset about it. (I hadn’t eaten the whole
|
1197 2 1
|
one will become a tobacco king;
another will steal copper plumbing on moonlessnights.
|
1197 6 5
|
to the back of your mind like a box of unpacked yet beloved books if you want, but that's no life I want to explore any further with you. We don't have as much time as we once thought, to believe in something other than empty bottles lost in the…
|
1197 0 0
|
you kissed me, once,/ kindergarten, recall--/ behind my ear./ called/ 'bee sting'
|
1196 0 0
|
I had committed the perfect crime, and I had left nothing to chance; my best strategy was chancing nothing. Prudence and planning were my only allies, and these are the best allies of success. Usually.
|
1196 2 2
|
Voluntary exiles spread fears and feces, diseases and monstrosities, all the suffering and suffocation, ruthlessness and rootlessness of the world, just like a horsefly that cheekily spreads its filthy eggs in the most paradisiacal corners of the earth. Hence the…
|
1196 3 2
|
Roaming beetles
knitting needles
chopstick counter attack.
|
1196 0 0
|
The man at the table was surrounded by an empty kitchen.Dishes were in the sink from the dinner before andEveryone had gone about their days early in the morning. They had left a board game out, scattered across the table,Life, plastic cars and plastic people, and a…
|
1196 5 2
|
The rest is Scots,
people for whom a taste is enough
and a lyric’s as rare as a dragon
or a poet named MacDuff.
|
1196 3 0
|
When the deer did come, I couldn't shoot straight. I didn't feel scared, but I didn't want to miss and my hand was shaking. I hurried. I held my gun pointing out at the path and fired. But it went a little wild and instead of taking the deer down, I shot
|
1196 1 1
|
Years later, the couple is different in some terribly profound way. Maybe they have grown old and begun to look like one another. Or maybe they have been divorced and haven't spoken in months or years except through the kids, who they spoil and use against their…
|
1196 3 3
|
“Mirela,” I said. “Mirela, Mirela, Mirela.” I must have told him a hundred times, no exaggeration. “What the hell kind of name is that?” I ignored him, lit a smoke and watched a group of teenage girls as they laughed their way…
|
1196 0 0
|
They'd driven the car there but had lost the keys so that it simply sat out in the yard, the yard of the house they couldn't leave because they'd lost the keys to the house as well as to the car, so they were kind of stuck. Their neighbors…
|
1196 4 4
|
There by the opposite doorway opening onto the thinly carpeted kitchen lay—well, what seemed to be all that was left of Miriam Flagellporte . . .
|
1196 2 1
|
There: you see a woman who has laid hands on the man she walks with. Tomorrow she will kill herself. Let me speak her life. Born alone, without event. Moon, gibbous. Month, Julius, the tail end. A Leo. Many other signs and wonders seen to have been…
|
1196 11 8
|
Gestures we would like to make in the solitude of a café terrace ... Early in the morning ... She's sitting there, seems shivering. Grey dress, red scarf. Her eyes move. I try to meet them - small, vague black clouds which pass, without resting, by mine. She drinks her…
|
1196 0 0
|
Weave a circle round him thrice
And with bemusement shake your head,
For he on cod and beans hath fed
And drunk the beer of Paradise.
|