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Strange Land

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I was still18 years old when the plane landed in South Korea. It was 10AM, Friday. Stepping off the jet way, it could have been any airport in America. But it wasn't. As soon as we got in the airport we were hustled to Customs. Filled out a bunch of forms. Asked…

Mountain godfather

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“Look them straight in the eye, keep your mouth shut unless spoken to, and make no sudden moves.”

The Back Burner

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Below them, the clag shears open in irregular patches, the lights of Seattle resolving themselves through the thinning overcast then vanishing again by turns.

My Composite Girlfriend

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Her dad regaled me with stories of his up-from-the-bootstraps climb out of poverty on the hard-scrabble, rough-and-tumble Lower East Side of New York, where he founded the leading supplier of hyphens to writers of purple prose.

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.

Forgiveness

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Inside a restroom stall, Herbert Casey Jr. took a soggy roll of cash from his boot and placed a quarter of the wet bills into his wallet. He divided the rest into the three empty pockets of his blue jeans.

Sometimes, It's Simply a Nice Dress

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Clarissa kept bringing up a particular subject in counseling. It seems two years before her affair, she had accused Jon of being attracted to her friend Steph. The evidence that led Clarissa to this conclusion, started at an office Christmas party. Steph reached…

lunch

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strange daysi'm having lunch with the babyand we're talking about people-watchingand old souls and coffee and twizzlersit's a weird conversation but she's my babyso something about some apple not falling far from the treewould best fit in herebut anywayi feel like i'm…

One Brief Moment

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I have sat aside and entertained the coveted feelings of what was not in my hands. Only briefly, a moment shared of hidden secrets and joy. But of and between us, I cannot say that this moment is a considerable spur-still I desire…

Nope

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Can't cope.

A Tinder Ghost

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Do you know if you were actually speaking to me there?

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. (...)

again that summer

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And there was Kathi R in the summer of 1969. She was from Wheaton. We had tons of unprotected sex that summer. She was short, almost no breasts, but man, she could reach down behind me somehow and grab my balls at precisely the right moment, and bam, ba

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

There Were Giants Upon the Earth in Those Times and the Wickedness of Men

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A pair of snakes contemplates gulping a pair of frogs.

I spend my free time writing epitaphs

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I invented a game called Church & State

gravelortian part 21

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Happy is a look we are trying to wear better

Woody met Louise

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Times were tough. They met out on the right-of-way on Highway 61 heading south, each trying to hitch a ride to New Orleans where they might find work. Albert walked up to her lugging a saxophone in a scuffed up case. Mamie had old cloth suitcase. After handshake bona fides…

Let Me Drown

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Our local low rent ice-based superhero said he’d had enough and would check back in early spring.

Navigating Iota

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I never thought that I would be here

I've got to

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Growing into a new mold, watching our friendships fall into deep deep holes.

dresses on a rat

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I heard about you in advance. You were not going into a party looking for dresses on a rat. Nor shades of blue rubber, nor symbols of hot purity. I knew what you were after, so I put myself in front of you. You could not mistake me for anything other th

Hands

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the moment he started walking my hands were given new tasks to do:

Caleb

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CALEBHe'd get up every day,don his clothes and tendto rote ablutions. He tried not to think too much.Because he knew what that would bring --the tethers he lost; failed causes,the last lover, who knew some things.Instead, he kept his eyes straight ahead,marked time,…

Foster's Landing

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my stomach is empty, but it is my eyes that are hungry

Can You Imagine?

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“Can you imagine what we could have accomplished, if we would have just gotten all the fuckin out of the way?” says Doug Stanhope, one of my favorite comedians, and one of the most brilliant, harsh straight to point utterances, I've heard from anyoneWe…

The Pheasant

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Times they were a blazing, the Pheasant met God in Piccadilly meadows

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…

The Sun is Here

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and I revel in the fact. There are other facts at work and play, but I'm hanging out with this one because it is my day off and I'm listening to music and writing poems. I like the bright appearance coming from the bedroom…

Hope and Fear

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She hears me, acknowledges me. She knows I’m bound each day, unable to make my voice heard. “It’s regrettable,” she mumbles...