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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…

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. …

On Perfect Marble

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So the subtle shadow settles onto perfect marble on the floor of the ocean when the sunlight blooms over space and time but only in the near future as it has always been

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…

Pleaser

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Yes keeps falling out of my mouth

Communion

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I dream empty, the wind blowing benzene blue. Shards of glass. Barbed wire. Bricks crushing flame into notions gone quick, never painless. Is it my blood? In my eyes. On my hands. Is it for you? I'm not sure where I'm walking here. Walking towards what from. Is it…

Winter in the Hague

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

(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.

It's Stupid, Stupid, What Will Become Of Us

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Whoa! Whoa! This just in! You mean we were minutes away from some kind of immanent Greek tragedy!!? Let me get this straight. I cheated one time on Jolene with Jolene’s baby-sitter (you!), whom she used to cheat on her husband (with me)? I guess I’m luc

Europa Sonnets (A work in progress 1-4)

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1. So this is how the Western world ends, with a shrug:Great lanes extinguished of the lamps that yearned Once for tomorrows turnstiled as agog We watch you, Paris, long rejected, burned- If without flame from exiled …

79 AD

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No CNN to sing obliteration,/ only Pliny the Younger/ to scratch what fell

He's Grieved Long Enough

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My stepmother called me an amoral virgin during our latest "disagreement."

For Seven Days

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The fluorescents above a constant hum. A hymn. The child lay on the bed as the parents worriedly hovered. Fretted and dreaded. Tubes and wires led from the broken body to machines and computers that fed and cataloged every minute detail occurring in the collapsing system.…

Dinner at Wendy's

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bodacious Titten.

Villon, Stop Following Me Around!

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Villon, get the hell outta here!

the sweet lunar springs

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Check the sweet lunar springs that we are still bathing in. The swelling in the genitals there. Check to make sure we are ripe, and in season. It’s our way of being willing, strong under the sweet icy waters, with that fertility that is derived from you

We Are

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for Melissa together today. I like that feeling. I want to pound a piano into the ground just for you. To your warmest heartbeat I raise my glass. Thank you. It doesn't really matter if they think that's a velvety Elvis…

Star Dance

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It comes to him in the night. When he's lying there, staring at the ceiling. The shadows dance on the white paint, forming into monsters that get you when you sleep. The moon hangs low in the sky, dancing with the stars in a ballet that lost all movement

Bum on a Stoop in Paris with a Bald Head in the Rain

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Bum on a Parisian stoop begging with his big Jackson Pollack bare head in the rain The water running in streaks all over his brain Reminding him of a painting He once thought of Keep going, you’re coming back again. Get out of the car wrec

Nepenthe

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Alas, the wind, the rain/ and plate tectonics take temples,/ fire and sediment papyrus and clay,

Dude Fish

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the wiggly word / floats toward the crowd

aren't we having fun?

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I had a dream and in it a small deer came to the side of the road and licked the salt from my wounds. I was lying beside you in a ditch, after crawling out of a smashed car (maybe your pal Jackson Pollock was driving.) We were just kids, really, not muc

a type of lullabye

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the rain on the windowhammers out a symphonyfor ninety Underwoodsand oh what a savage performanceit does take to soothe this beast

gravelortian part 21

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Happy is a look we are trying to wear better

Driving the High Roads

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Here in this land of cannabis...

I will miss you

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I will miss you, sure, let it be known. The memory, and the dream, both. That familiar smell of Old Spice when someone wearing it comes near. And the smell of Coppertone Suntan Lotion on the beaches of our youth in Chicago. And the pressure of your fing

Sunlight Falling Directly On Her Body

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The fine blond hairs lift slightly along the skin of your arms As you nod, listening to him. The veins On your arms standing up as well I was caught in an off moment because of your skin Because of the way moisture beads up on it The youthful fi

Sunday Morning Series- One: What I Learned in Sunday School

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I learned He was a Schmuck when, on/ the mountaintop, with Abraham,/ I waited on His call: one Isaac, neat.

Market Day

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I'd rather slit my wrists with a Triscuit...

A Ruckus Needs To Be Raised, or Caused, or Raised

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Either a ruckus needs to be raised Or a ruckus needs to be caused I began chewing the locks of love Off the fences and the gates I was so outraged At the horrible academic trash If they had found me doing this They would have hauled me a