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Still

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I wanted only to be still, to become a rustle for a moment of papery fall leaves sighing past one another on their way to the funeral pyre in the front lawn, sweetly fragrant with the scent of death and inevitable decline, fearless in their annihilation, incandescent…

A Journey (on Foot) Through Hostile Lands

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Love comes and goes as it pleases. Plant lives matter you know. Isn't it so obvious? I'm sure you've noticed or felt like you've been here before. Maybe forever. Just ask any hand-held camera or open book. Well. How many times can we…

He Loved Her (In Honor of Father's Day)

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A man strolled by with perfect posture and a masterful comb-over. Bud gave me that 'get him' expression; sitting there with his own low side part. We razzed him about it all the time, but he still looked pretty-damn-good for seventy-five.

Reconceiving the Resurrected

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among and begin / bouquets

Calling the Nurse

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The coffee cup was still full. Black hot steaming smoke signals climbed toward the ceiling, like blowing soot out of dirty bagpipe lungs. The mug exhaled constant and slow like the Fall, until room temperature crept from the handle around…

Karmic Rip Cord

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For the kid in me who fell head over heels all the way down the stars, I wonder where you are now. Slack is harder to cut than you might think, I have learned. And assigning the middle finger its true purpose keeps me pretty bus

Here is a game...

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I give you three words dripping wet with whatever and you take them, harbor them...

The Infamous Kiss

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When the sailor heard the 2nd World War had just ended He grabbed the woman in the white dress Bent her backwards in Times Square And kissed her real good And the photographer Just happened to be there At the right moment But then As

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…

Teddy

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I'd had way too many drinks. My legs were quivering. Everyone had gathered there in the kitchen, my sleek and attractive ex-wife the center of attention, all the men fucking drooling over her. Seems she was a yoga queen now, a vegan princess, a dancer somewhere. She…

Sisters

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Jo was tailored, Amy was frivolous with ribbons and bows, Meg was plain and sensible; and Beth, who was ill and had no costume changes, wore the same nightgown throughout the dress-up session.

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.

Winter in the Hague

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There is only me and the crooked pavement that leads to your dim tower.

77 Words About Nothing (Sundays)

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Sunday nights weren't massive. They were Sunday mornings that remained.

The Poetry Section

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In the poetry section, no one talks except to say, "excuse me," or, "wow," or, "amazing," with the second 'a' stretched out like a blacktop highway. But mostly they say, "excuse me." and that's only because someone dressed in a corduroy jacket is …

Granny Medicine

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Antibiotic ointment didn't help. Maybe Granny medicine would.

Fugue No. 3

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The falcon cannot hear the falconer. The rain comes down in sheets.

Blind Spots

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He was twisted...

Walking My Lobster Back Home

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Gee but it’s great after being out late, Walking my lobster back home. There’s little risk that she’ll turn into bisque, Walking my lobster back home.

Beginning Amy Clampitt

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The walks along the beach/ render brave, meticulous, taxonomies

Jack Garner, Parsley Farmer

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“Stay away from fad fruits and vegetables like endive, pomegranates and kiwis,” his father said. “Stick with something that people need, something that will last–parsley.”

"No lights shine out tonight high hung in heaven"

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(From Postcards fom a Railway Station (final poem)) No lights shine out tonight high hung in heaven: And the constellations like a dead man fall. No sight of polar eyes, whose sons are seven, And I stand unthinking and beyond it all I own it all a…

No Dogs Allowed

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They were an interesting young couple. Tom was a big man with rugged features, though not handsome. His face was deeply pock-marked with the scars that are sometimes left over from a terrible bout with adolescent acne. His wife – though I was never cert

Insect Ethics

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Let’s just say I’m pissed. Indignant. Angry about living in a universe that appears to be utterly amoral.

Ambient

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I try to make conversation by showing her the washing instructions for the jeans I just bought for $375.00. She reads slowly. “What, do they assume you live in Australia or something?”

Transmitter/Receiver

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Valerie had purchased a new cell phone in late 2007, and, say a few months afterwards, in the beginning of 2008 a demon briefly took up residence in it. She had just returned home from running a few errands, and set her phone down on her desk. She had been focusing on…

Brother Dream

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It’s always daylight there My brother comes running down the sidewalk holding out his arms and calling my name He’s wearing suspenders. He’s gotten thinner in heaven He embraces me warmly wanting us to be friends I give up trying to resist

She Kept A Lookout

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Many years later, as the smell of charring straw filled the basket she was standing in, high above faces turned upwards to watch her fly, she remembered the night her fingertips brushed snow off the Alps.

Literature

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My God is not a God of chance, she said.The year was youth and it was our first dance.She wanted to make sure we agreedlove is for God and lust is for Satan.Of course I do, I said. You're safe with me.Neither of us had moves and were relievedto stand in the corner and…

Puppet ABC - 1

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I am not a Road Scholar, ladies & gentlemen, though I’ve been On the Road more than once. Do not mistake me for a bum. I am not a hobo, homeless or otherwise, in this life or any other, I am not a bum, I insist. But I d