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The Joint is Out of Time: A Journal of the Plague Year, Day 108

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History in the unmaking.

34

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The space they are in is years long.

Facing Budget Cuts, Schools Hire Samurai Crossing Guards

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“Out-of-work samurai have a choice,” says Bobby Ito. “They can terrorize local peasants at county fairs, or underbid low-skilled workers for menial jobs.”

Credits

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I fuck myself. I say never three times. There is a movie in this movie in this. I say hello. Fish are named after capitals of invisible cities. I say so. There is a movie in this movie in. I say flush for a dumpster. The sound of a sound never made. I say equations for…

Shine

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not sure why - we rise

Sparrow

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I don't care what my reincarnated self thinks about today. I'm already aware that everything stinks in the end. Well. It's supposed to. But all things must seek travel while they can. Dance while they can. Dream while they can. Laugh while they can.…

The Longer

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The longer this goes on the worse it gets.

Testing, Testing

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I awoke sweating like a Mormon at an anti-bigamy conference.

The Cat Beneath the Off Ramp

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Like Smart’s cat Jeoffrey, he’s a mixture of gravity and waggery.

Tough Guy

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He remembers his father’s concrete slab hands. Balled into fists they resembled kettlebells.

Tuna Sandwiches

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The tuna fish sandwiches were laid out the way they had always been; they were cut into triangles, with wet paper towels between them. They stayed that way over an hour, untouched, aside from a dimple the size of my cousins finger to test the softness. …

Breakfast in Prague on 9/11

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I was sitting in Prague having breakfast on 9/11 near the Astronomical Clock while the world was bombing ISIS the sons of ex-Nazis sitting at a table nearby and old apparatchiks leisurely eating sausages while the world took a moment to

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

gravelortian part 15

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Eager to please the guards, doctors and preachers

the musk and the drama

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Shame must search the soul, broken, original, with its primitive juices stirred. Moved until now only by the musk, only the stroll you lived with, the worry, the sorrow, the drama – may I never conceal or recover from it! Yes, I might beg or steal the

Thanks for the Unsolicited Advice

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And what is it I’m supposed to do With all this unsolicited advice?

Texturality

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A.The poem of rational progression is dulling.Make the leap. Go beyond juxtaposition to collision.We like poetry that does double duty, triple duty, quadruple duty. We like poetry that mixes the grit, poetry that has the texture of complexity.Reason asserts an…

Chills On My Opposite Hip

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You gave me chills on my opposite hip whenever you touched me from behind, when we spooned under the rough woolen blanket in your basement. Whenever your essence touched my life like that. Just like when you said, “You came, that’s all.” That’s all? T

be kind to your pieces…/torn

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Pieces that said shrug a shrug and then another and one to right with the eyes that squint and one to left with rhythm that never left. And piece after piece, after piece they stich themselves, née weave a tapestry that is the dance your very walk swayed

77 Words About Prowling At Whole Foods

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I prowl. You prowl. We all prowl.

I Said God Damn

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the space between two antelopes is a canyon,

porcelain

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And then, like all those nights before, she just fell asleep seducing me.

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…

Mountain godfather

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

Perils of Poetry in a Pandemic

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...the bulk of poets are amateurs.

Like the Goats

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...

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.

Patio Joe, 55

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Patio Joe, 55 and constantly smelling of swill, got his name because he sold and stocked patio furniture at the neighborhood Kmart. With his pockets full of dusty rags and crushed Old Golds, he'd daydream about check out girls.But I suppose you'd have to call them check out…

Coins

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I was reading The Transmission of Doubt by Adi Da, and since it was just shy of five hundred pages, I had become tired and needed air. It was funny because Eglington Square Mall had only one floor and was more like a mini mall than anything, with a beer store on…

(we can only hope)

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And you should know, every woman smiles at a man buying flowers, because … we can imagine. We can only hope.