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A Good Provider -- take 2

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She lay on the cool white linoleum floor. Her eyes pointed at the dust under the refrigerator, but she didn't see it. She didn't see anything anymore. She heard the clock ticking out the seconds. Thoughts ricocheted around her brain at the speed of light, making …

A Pair of Allowances

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“Your mother enjoyed apples and made you wear unfashionable pants; she was a bitch. From now on we eat only candy bars and we wear only shorts. But first, four hours of video games!”

The Merry Go Round

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I felt that love could not be paid for or else could never be paid for enough.

Prowl Car

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Mischief / has marked the bone marauders for doom.

Target practice

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...it didn’t take much to just toss it aside and muster up some fresh bravado.

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…

Bukowski in Hollywood and the Collating Party at his Apartment

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They called him Hank. We piled in a car and drove up from Irvine to his little bungalow apartment on DeLongpre near Hollywood Blvd. for a collating party for this Mag he started with Neely called “Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns.” No shit, that wa

Vostok

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

Agrarian Joys of Ornamental Lawns

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

Banger in the Hanger

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song

Hospital, or Depression III

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Yes sir, I confess there have been timeswhen I did not care how young the earth isor take pride in how she sprang back to greenregardless of how hard the snow fought.There have been times, yes, when I lacked the willto notice such things and knew that belowthe water's…

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.

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.

Proceed here to read some of my work

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http://jrleyvas.net

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…

I Love a Man Who Whistles

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“Hey! You can’t be whistling on Greyhound,” the bus driver said, looking up in the rearview mirror.

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

Time

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TimeDoesnt existWe're told it existThe sun rises and fallAnd people exist for the eight Hour dayBut time does not existHuman beings put TIME in their lives To give it order Most people always seem to be looking for order!!Amidst the chaosIt goes very fast for someVery slow…

About My Dad

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My dad was in a barber training school where they cut off the tip of a bum's ear and taped it back on with scotch tape

The Box

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It was just after lunch when they found the box.

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

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…

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

Kicking Out the Enjambs

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I can be iambic when I want to / be!

Wait room

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It was Saturday morning."The coffee maker is not ready yet," said one of the old men. Like the present company, his form was swollen with mismatched layers of cold weather wear.It was a white room with a dozen men, three couches, and a large screen television flickering…

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…

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. (...)

Loretta McKinley

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After Loretta McKinley had sat for just such a time on a rock near the tribe, hallucinating and coming as close to death and God as she ever had, she walked into the camp and asked to speak with the elders.

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…

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…