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The Window

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Out the window, the butterflyhad escaped,beyond my perception and maybe into someone else's.The little boy with the kite stared back,wound his string,and ended his afternoon.

Writing Poems

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We bring words together and set them up on blind dates. Watch them build a history together, get married and fight together. Make offspring syllables cradled warm in cribs of punctuation. Phonemes squeezed into existence by two parenthesis. Words…

Puppet On a String

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Spring break that year, (1963) I spent nearly every minute with Lynda. Her taste for sex was unquenchable once we’d gotten started. We did it in every position possible. The sitting position in the front seat of the car, which my brother Herb had to expla

POTATOES

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The hospital was a welcome relief. A short ambulance ride, a nice man holding your arm in a make-shift tourniquet, the red sirens flashing and screeching. Then you were…

Sinning and Sinning and Sinning

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Then I learned she was revealing all our sexcapades to this young priest. Forgive me, father, I have sinned. We had sex outdoors against a tree in Wisconsin and the tree was blending with our act and becoming one with my back rubbing up against the bark

Amble

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I sulk across the room to feed you,hold your hand, tell you everything will be fine. It is the right time of night,the light from the street falls onto the chairat the perfect angle. I look at you, gray, shimmering, persnickety. Don't move, thisis just the dust, helping me…

Mr. Barefoot & Rev. Broad

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Cold hurts at first, but you wake up.

The Pain of Memory

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It's awfulYou remember everythingYou never forgetEvery insultEvery bruiseEvery scarEvery burnEvery nickEvery blow You never forgetI never forget The pain of memoryYou think you forgetBut you never forgetThe dread of some wholly misfortuneThe pain that left you…

Feast

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His long black lashes stir, flutter a wink. His eyes catch yours through the dark reflection of your face, illuminated from beneath by wavering candlelight. Reflection obscures his features; they become yours.

Prowl Car

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Mischief / has marked the bone marauders for doom.

The beginning of the end

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(...) I know my eyes are shut and I’m on the kitchen floor but I see her and I’m not confused. (...)

The Affair

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Mine lasted 90 days. But don't they all? After we made love the first time, it was early November, I remember, some internal part of me shot upward with a laughter that would not stop. Something…

002

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there are nights when you're all alonein the darkwhere the only lightis the glow of the computer screenand words can't seem the scratchthe surface of your skulland bit by bitthe sentences, phrases, and lettersattached to your synapsesdrownin your subconscious

Fungi light/ Fungi Language

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I'm sitting in the dark of my own kitchen, because it is dark outside, not from night but from clouds. I guess that's where I'll start talking from. This isn't about you. I'm not sure it's even about me. It's probably about the…

Cottontail Morning

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A murder of bunnies nibble the St. Augustine,

Kicking Out the Enjambs

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I can be iambic when I want to / be!

Surprise!

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We were fleeing Hurricane Katrina We stopped somewhere in Texas at a roadside diner But found a sign that said it was closed All of a sudden as we sat there in our car The shop’s owner knocked on the window And asked what he could get for us

Proceed here to read some of my work

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http://jrleyvas.net

The Invaders

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“Elaine, what's that bee doing?”, asked Jonathan as he slid his reading glasses down and turned his attention from the morning paper to a bee that had landed on the his Nesbitt's Lime soda bottle. The bottle sat on the small, hand-made table in their back…

nestled in swirling chaos; pineal pinecone

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Both my Nana and my mother have blond hair…as a child I thought most women of European descent tended towards this color, this particular hue of straw, and threads of gold woven together. I had been somewhere as a nine year old, I…

Topsy Was a Flip Flopper

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Topsy was a flip flopper ... Topsy was a crazy complainer.

Memoirs from a Book

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I know you want to hold me. I won't break. I love you. Your hands - when they caress me are soft and gentle. My words speak only to you. They speak of love and of how we spend…

Vostok

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"[A]ppointed an official supplier of watches for the Ministry of Defence of the Soviet Union in 1965."

Making Waves in Sculptural Math

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It was a summer full of rage and discontent. The air had a new taste to it, reminiscent of the tang of battery acid.

Agrarian Joys of Ornamental Lawns

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The leaves/ that clung through February/ fall, dung brown,

Mister and Miss Marital Bliss

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The canvas bag lay crumpled and moaning in the middle of the room as Mister and Miss Marital Bliss contemplated what to do to it next. Spots of deep crimson blossomed like spring flowers all over the white sack and a large pool had gathered underneath. Rivulets of blood…

How the Other Half Lives

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Most of life, it turns out, is pathetic. Very little is funny. We have to generate our own laughter. Canned laughter may have to do. Even if we have to carry the can around our neck like a Saint Bernard or strapped to our hip

Swaying on This Articulation Until We Slow

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In Nebraska, I looked up from the flatness, to her face, then down to the page and saw this: Real people have joy.

Like the Goats

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My Book of Frozen Ponds

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We broke our hearts rather than sit in your reversible seats with the plain brown paper packages tied on our laps, we did so together. You don't want to hear about that. It gets too close to the actual murder of love. I…