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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…

Sundays

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First was the end of the month Sunday morning picnic. Well, Not first - there was more. Something Before then. But, You looked different with wind in your Hair and Never the same again. The mud on your skirt matched my thoughts. You'd fallen, I'm sure, and I…

Day Seven

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Once again, I start the engine.

#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.

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…

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…

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.

Wednesday

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“Goodnight,” he said before leaving the room and shutting his bedroom door behind him. She stood in the kitchen alone now, a shot of vodka poured into a shot glass, and a bottle of coke ready to swig afterwards. This didn't make her an alcoholic…

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.

L.A. Blonde

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Then there was Marsha, the blonde bombshell, at Irvine, who slept over one night only. As in the original one night stand, your standard L.A. blonde beach-girl bombshell ex-cheerleader tear your heart out and spit it as far as she could. Wrench your bal

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…

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.

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.

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

Orpheus and Eurydice

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

From T.S. Eliot's Copybook

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Thanks for the invitation, although you don't make the Undergraduate Verse Society Ice Cream Social and Poetry Slam sound very appealing.

The Painter Tourist

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demanded he give up muscatel art

Lemon Citron

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Here it comes at long last. We just can't do it like that again. We don't have the same time. But something's wanting something more to be more than this. Here it comes again. But you bailed on me the last time around. Went silent as a…

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…

Cutty Sark

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A sense of plenty courses through

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

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

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

The Country Star

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He’s got horns and a tail I found him on sale He’s got snake in his DNA Evil in his eye And plenty of chicken pot, chicken pot Chicken pot pie But he sure can play piano With those giant lobster hands In his ratty raccoon coat And his

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…

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…

The First Round

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It was mostly accidental.