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Dust

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It was the absence of small sounds he felt most. The clink of a spoon against china, a floorboard’s distant creak, the swish of that old, broken-toothed comb through her hair. A thousand tiny sounds that had proved he wasn’t alone.

goddess of personified flesh

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And yes, I may be the goddess of personified flesh, the same little goddess of curled locks, of little sleep, on fire, ablaze. With my sudden weakness, stoppage of breath, pulse cut short, leaving the wrist. And you of stolen, fraudulent face, troub

The Narrow Confines of Existence

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It seems like that is all I really knowThe narrow confines of my existenceThe sun rises and falls somewhere,And all living things, move, work struggle and fightCarrying a bucket of water, while the sunBangs the day's rhythm on my armsThere's a war going on, all the…

Floozy Walks Into a Bar

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Floozy Walks Into a Bar Toting a handbag the size of a small suitcase Because you never know Floozy Walks Into a Bar Dragging her reputation behind her And everyone looks behind her too Floozy Walks Into a Bar To test the temperature of

Vanity Among Pigeons

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About four in the afternoon a pigeon began admiring itself in the shiny panel of a car door until another pigeon came along and it quit acting foolish.

Bananas

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Dog winged the monkey's gerdonderplonk just past ceremony. Winkle-wizzened water garglers awoke wanderjanked while apple-gated confederates slept on. Rusty pipe smack-down cancelled water lily gumbo's two o'clock and Patsy sang Crazy for the millionth time.…

Retrospective with Mum

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I've brought a stack of old photo albums to the home with me. It'll be nice to go through them with Mum, I'm thinking.When I arrive she's doing her usual routine, where she sits silent for a time then bursts unprompted into laughter, lungs rattling, shouting at some…

Be Prepared

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I thought I would beThe standing champagne glassunmarked and gleamingThe sleeping silverParalleling matesInert as ChinaBut I was the catasleep on the rug

I'll find you - A Dedication to Mathew Paust

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Matt was among those rare creatures; an ideal kind of reader ...

Because the night

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I glance back over my shoulder as you fumble with the keys. Repeatedly. You swear a little under your breath. You finally locate the proper one and the large door swings open. I hold it as you run over to the alarm keypad. You punch in the code written on a…

Frostproof Suite: Clown Car

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My job was take the falls, act the dope, finish at the wrong end of the slap stick for the blow off. I was Auguste, the fool; I drove the clown car.

Orpheus and Eurydice

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This is hell amongst the bloom and grow. Spring's warmth is cruel, a feast of unrestraint...

On Strike in the City

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The first day of the Steamfitters and Pipewranglers Local 175 strike was exhilarating. Every man (accurate; there were no women in the union) showed his support outside the Willgarden High Rise Corporation's company headquarters on Fifth Avenue, shaking unreadable signs…

bienvenue (a poem)

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if you lost your list on your way here i will help you get what you came for.

Saturdays with Satan: Desperately Seeking Evil

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“Grow some fucking balls, Satan!”Did I just say that? To the prince of darkness?Yes. Yes, I did. Let me back up.*It was around 10:30 Saturday morning when the phone rang. I recognized the caller id.“Hi, Satan,” I said as I picked it…

It's My Life

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Look, “Wolfie,” (or “Pharaoh,” or whatever your name is now) a little too much information, don’t you think? I don’t need to hear all the details about you and Sharon. It’s my life, and I’ll cry if I want to – to alter the song just a

Falling

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She lets the book drop through her fingers to the floor and stares straight ahead watching the red lights streak by in the darkness. The train rocks her away from the seat and back; she rolls her spine along the plastic to absorb the motion, taking it away from…

#1

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“I am the Successor of Peter!” he said, supporting himself on the shepherd’s staff topped with a crucifix: “And you are trespassing on Holy Ground.” Baal said: “No ground is Holy for me.

God Works Out of A Home Office

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with binoculars neighbor reads screen text:

I Like the Celebration

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But please, don't let me fall into any more smaller pieces than I already have, before I get to kiss someone again and really mean It. I'm pretty sure I've always believed in something more positive than just hate. I've …

Marilyn, of NYC

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I remember another one night stand in NYC with a girl named Marilyn. We’d met up at Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in Vermont. It was the Summer of Love, and a number of us student writers were planning a trip out to San Francisco to participate in that f

Disparity

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These were strange realizations, and each built upon the one before until I was completely mystified and unsettled in my life.

GUNS

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I'm gonna buy a gun.

US Navy Honors Coltrane With Birthday Concert

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As unlikely as it may seem, John Coltrane was in fact a member of the U.S. Navy Band in 1947 in Honolulu.

Childproof Your Chewing Gum, Will You?

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Have you ever heard a bird sneeze? Okay, okay, I was sitting on this branch, and you know how everybody loves to hate poetry, right? So, I ran into some hippies, who had named their daughter Echinacea, and you could instantly read her future, and

Prick-Tease

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“Pull out, pull out, you dimwit!” Cheryl B told Andy. “I told you to pull out before you came, if you ever expect to climb up on top of me again! God, Andy, what’s wrong with you?” Cheryl had flaming red hair and was what we now call “Plu

Hot Weather

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I would like to invite the public to an open-air, environmental art piece called Hot Weather. The exhibition will take place this summer. It will not begin until the temperature reaches 90 degrees. This demonstration is available free of charge

Who you pretended to be

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Who You Pretended To Be I only appeared to belong to my mother --Jane Kenyon I almost died when Ulysses sailed leaving behind the dowager queen complaining of processed sugar as Grandfather's limousine tooled to Saks to browse brassieres…

High Beings (including a few of the more mundane facets around)

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would absolutely love to hear from you singing as careless as a cat choir as you make your fingertip wishes well known to the dishwasher night,want you to be ever so playful with your environments as you please. While (those)…

Getting There

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Her light blue eyes fixed on a point to our left, past one of the church steeples poking out of the flat, charred ground – like a toothpick protecting a birthday cake from its cellophane ceiling; an untouched bethesda keeping the never-blue sky from crash