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Old, Broken Toys

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A boy sits in a room filled with old, broken toys. A mother is in the next room reading Cosmopolitan, dreaming of a life that should have been hers. There is the zoo and an unnecessary stroller on a very humid day, beads of sweat dripping slowly down a face. A trip to the…

air hugs

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but all I can give them now are air hugs

AND I WILL REMAIN AS CAUTIOUS AS EVER

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We’re on the phone dead battery & I want this to last forever. The last thing I want to do is make decisions.

Jack and Jane

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I wonder if the Pleiadians are out there. Jack, what are you talking about? said Jane. The Pleiadians. I said I wondered if they were out there. You did go to special school, didn't you? No, said Jack, I didn't. I don't know why you always tell people that. …

Lineage

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the arc of her invective presumably aimed at the little boy and girl ambling halfway down the block behind her

The Dork Shoe

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A strange man tapped my door and held up the shoes for me to see. “It is the Dork Shoe,” he said. I looked past him at his dusty station wagon filled with boxes. “I have your size right here.” I observed the halo of his gray hair as he…

Cape Charles

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"ain't hardly got a lick o' crabs today"

Heart Apart

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Yes, I had pulled my own heart apart Yes, I had slipped up on time itself In its own backyard behind my memories And scared the crap out of it By not yelling, just sniffing at its neck Longingly, tearing it apart with my teeth Wishing I had

luncheon on the grass

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I had a dream, I remember, where I am in this painting, Luncheon on the Grass. My dress was thrown off and the picnic basket, filled with bread and fruit, is spilled out upon it, and I am sitting nude on my underclothing, with two gentlemen fully dresse

The Passing of Odd Fellows ---- Tales From the IV

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The appointed day came without much fanfare. The day was gloomy, but it would do. They climbed to the roof of the house to a small landing where Smiley placed the tiny piano stool smack dab in the middle. As soon as Ethan sat down Smiley rotated the chair

Living on Non-Skid Row

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Here’s the local group of grumpy gray-haired men Chewing over politics as if it’s important As if their endless discussing of it, Waving their hands in the air, gesturing, Is going to change the world How do these guys stop from having heart a

This Is Not Your Poetry

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Your begging hands are hacking me up again like garden claws that know not the difference between a delicate solar powered flower and a tightening choke of killing weeds.It's not like it's even mine to keep-- like a legal document I'd…

gravelortian part 7

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suck chew sip

Have You Seen The Globe Today?

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http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2011/07/17/imagine_mimes_as_the_mbta_noise_police/

Sensible Things

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Thirty-seven stitches to sew your ear on, five more to close the skin above your eyebrow...

Enigmas

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Fish don't walk.

fires

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Fire.Orange.Fire.There were orange and red fires but for the most part they were orange.Before that, I was just standing there in the dark looking at the streetlights and then past them. I was gonna try to stare into infinity and had high hopes. Due to much cloud cover,…

Jukebox Genesis

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Once something starts, there is no telling where it will go.

A Story About A.Who Wants to Be An Entrepreneur

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A. wants to be an entrepreneur but cannot get with the program.

Sonnets III-VI (The Ishtar Sonnets)

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With porc’lain hand she writes thy thankless verse/ Like Proserpina, strapped to eb’ny throne,/ Eternally paying the six-month purse/ For hunger once soothed with but seeds alone.

Custard and Blancmange

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Who here of us has not yet caught Advanced to leaden fife, The answer to our waiting What, That answered, “Such is life?” I saw a jelly man go past, Who wobbled in his strife And cried, “No stiffness that won't last …

Four More Haikus

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Death is like a warmcup of hot cocoa, steamingup into nothing. The sun rise will bringprison bars of light through thebedroom blinds again. Sorry about thefirst three hours of your deathI thought you were drunk. Across the park thestrange dog looks…

Thwart

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Daily, at 3:47 PM, below his office window, a child in an orange windbreaker sits in the last car of the T, in the rear seat, face pressed against glass.

Sorting It All Out

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To understand how and when things have gone wrong, it works best to proceed from the beginning and put them in order.

Twilight Is Merely A Shade of Color

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Its edges fluttering in the dull breeze, today's town newspaper lay at my old feet, open to the obituary page.

Newborn Baby App — Buyer Beware!

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They first hook you in with how cute they are. And they are cute, do not get me wrong. I'm not, nor have I ever been, fundamentally against babies—until now. As the first reviewer of this oh-so-wonderful app, my intention is not to…

Voices of the Dying

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raging on road and page

Character Witness

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You will say how easy it was to love him, How he is kind, gentle, Quick to rub your shoulders in the evening And never one to forget an anniversary. They will ask you of his interests, moods, pass-times And you will silently think of…

Falling Rocks in Equal Doses

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Not sure I remember what's important, but I remember you. That's the whole problem I think. You're a drain where all my words wind up going down. All of them get lost inside of you. Eventually. And I'm left with nothing to say. Because all my words are…

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