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Where the Subways Go Above Ground in Brooklyn

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The rocks are hot along the East RiverBelow hazy skies sent from Jersey Traffic.Pigeons peck at pieces of detritus,Walking calmly by pedestrians passingThrough the park during their allotted lunchHour. A girl with a strange frame —As if her ribs fused with her hips…

An Exquisite Fall From Grace

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He lay on a wooden pallet, which he had placed inside a cardboard box that might have once held a refrigerator. Except the box was labeled “Robotic Endoscopic Surgery System.” His head was propped on a gym bag that contained all his possessions. Outside, it…

Dead Uncle

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When Roy had seen the first of the movies in his dorm's weekend double feature that night (the University of Maine at Orono — as Stephen king once quipped, “that crossword-puzzle favorite”) …

A Journal of the Plague Year, Day 193

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More thoughts on denial...

The Human Bible

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Fat, religious, full of himself,

La sfida

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You don't see the bruises ... you can't foresee the pain. It's intense, so deep and yet so volatile, in vain. He slapped my head once more while he uttered for the millionth time the same old words again: "You're a loser and you'll never win. I hate for you to be my…

Heroes

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no one told him there was a place where heroes died, but he should have known it was in love

When Do We Breathe?

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You deserve air.

Josh and the Elder

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A cruel reminder of his irrelevance to the world of law, a world he had probably ruled for over 40 years.

Secondhand: Four Inscriptions

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To whoever reads this next--Henry James makes my head hurt.

Arrivals and Departures

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Because of her I got there early, and like I figured, the train was late.

Ghostwriters!

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(Sung to the melody of "Ghostbusters")When your prose is weakMetaphors clichésWho you gonna callGhostwriters!Characters they speakNot much to sayWho you gonna callGhostwriters!I ain't ‘fraid of no rejectionI ain't ‘fraid of no rejectionLyin' in your bedImagination soarsWho…

Bright Red Leaf

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Little scoundrel Name of leaf, No one knows He's a thief. The shadows stretch, The birds fly south, And summer's a word Of ash in the mouth When all of a sudden The colors are gone But for a red…

Reconceiving the Resurrected

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among and begin / bouquets

One Star

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...somehow that light has found me.

Sonnet II

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When gratitude on lovers' lips rings false/ As flattery by courtly sycophants,/ Take care to well distinguish gold from dross/ So as to gild gladder remembrances.

A New Woman

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George didn’t move when Cindy punched him in the nose. He just stood up and walked to the fridge, poured a glass of water and dropped a few ice cubes into the glass. The ice cracked in the glass as he walked back to the couch.

Conversations in a Chinese Restaurant

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I'm feeling almost better than you know A little bit better than the day before Waking up to a deafening scream Please, please don't hurt me no more Why do I feel like a lost dog? Staring outside the window pane How come I become dark? When the clouds begin to rain…

Nehwareven

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In the switched-off time of day's blackest rest-

Why Don't You Just Take Off Your Top

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You were there at the beginning almost, when I wanted to write about the dead spider I smashed on my bedroom wall, comparing it to the blue/grey smoke of the blown-off fireworks drifting overhead.

Jim

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Jim twisted the skinny trunk of his body in a fast, violent jerk just as the cop grabbed the buckle of his left Harley Davidson boot. When the boot flopped off, Jim found himself sitting upright, ready to jump up and run. But then he felt the baton lock down on his…

The Weight of Need

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In need of help, he bought his first self-help book at the age of twenty-nine.

Discards

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Church-lady dresses with matching jackets

The Time of His Death

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…if something happened to you so horrible that you no longer felt like living, would it have been better if you had died at birth? Okay, that's probably too early. No reason to act in haste. Maybe you should die when you're eighteen years old, just before…

Arcana Magi Zero Arc 2 - c.3

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All Karin did was watch from the street. No movement. No reaction. She just watched.

Dangling Participles

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Flies as big as raisins sucked spit off his lip as he slept. Not sleep in the strictest sense of the word because guys like him don't sleep, they merely avoid life between rampages. And this guy, well, he's gonna wish he'd avoided life a bit longer because when he…

Still Life with Dragonfruit and Absinthe Glass

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Still Life with Dragon Fruit and Absinthe Glass ‚ Allgegenwart ist Einsamkeit. ‘. — Johannes Jakob Hrodebertsohn …And bright inside this space, though outside lightfall? The spillaging of streetlamps does not cross the…

How The West Was Won

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I looked through the window of my shop here in Laredo and saw him standing there with his six-shooters drawn as I sized him up from his head to his toes. A ten-gallon, weathered black hat sat atop his head and a worn pock-marked and sun-bleached, denim shirt criss-crossed…

War Garden

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From the home front....

Past Brutalities

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Seven micros