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Europa Sonnets - 5-8

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5. To hate one's race is always overrated;We built fair cities where there were no huts.The Frankfurt School should all have been castrated,And strung up by a noose made of their guts.Marcuse, you have caused the death of Europe,With Gramsci, Adorno, Freud and all…

You Should Know

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Do you know how much it takes to holdthe spring you love against your lips? No angel, or I, will ever begrudge, nor the planets that have to slow their pace and stumble their orbits a degree behind to make the magic that keeps our grip. We could have been elephants…

dealt.

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Stealing time. Always gambling. I used to wake up with wet eyes; remnants of nights and days spent in places I never wanted to leave. I took to insomnia to escape the dreams that reminded me of places I could never return to.Now I sleep here. When I can.

cheap idol of possession

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And how the stars in your eyes exploited you. And the pollen-bearing moon shows its sex, and the years open their cards and splay them out on the table for all to see. And you come home from all the nipples of your Trojan Wars like Ulysses, and lie down

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

The Oscillating Escalator (Excerpt), 2011

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We can imagine an escalator as being a (conveyor) belt between two different states of consciousness. On the one hand (beginning or end, depending on how you see it) the lower (or higher) level, and on the other hand a progression or pro-‘motion’ of the f

gravelortian part 15

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Eager to please the guards, doctors and preachers

Frankly, I'm Not Doing Well

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TW: Self-harm. I wanted to write a mental health essay that wasn't all rah! rah! and with as little sentimentality as possible. Out of everything I've published, I've gotten the most feedback from this--people telling me it helped them understand a loved one better, etc.…

What She Left

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I'm on Cloud 9.

step martyr

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my heartis a brokenstandpipefanningcity water cayenneacross sidewalksgutters ripple redover fast food bagsand cigarette buttsover the feetof priests and pit bullsover the handsof drunksand babiesand into the mouthsof ratsand raconteurs you never oughtadrink…

Stone Soup

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When I asked her about her husband, she laughed.

Testing, Testing

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

The Progeny

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1I looked through the window of the drive-thru into the customers vehicle. There, encased in a ton of metal and plastic, sat a balding, rotund man in his mid-forties with flesh that resembled cookie dough sprinkled with beads of sweat. Not only did he defy physics by…

Still Life

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They called him Camel because of his humped back.

how gravity keeps time

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into the Zone of Avoidance gazes sink/ ―and why not? a black hole at the heart of it,/gravity attracts even our vision when/ we lift our gazes . . .

No More Ideas

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And then, one fateful day, the world ran out of ideas. The last one was gone, floating away like a balloon full of the helium we had already squandered.

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

Holiday

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My guy was Croatian. I sought an Italian.

We The Kings

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when the jewels weren't on his head; they were in his eyes.

Gecko

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“Hrrumph!” was almost audible as she turned/ to sniff behind the chifferobe for fresh/ green trophies.

Brooklyn Bridge

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I’m walking funny but only comedians notice.

The Summer They Walked On the Moon

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That summer I fucked Kathi R. from Wheaton, as much as I could. She called me Professor Obsessor. She was short and practically without tits, but must have had the longest arms, because she could somehow reach down around my ass while I was on top and she

Culture Abuse

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a sixteen year old girl Denim

First Thought

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She awakened and thought at first that the noise coming from the basement was an intruder, that someone was down there and might cause her harm. Then she remembered that the furnace had been erratic lately and had made some strange noises. She drifted off…

Judith

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“Hello. How are you?” “Me? I'm fine actually. Just sitting here in this little coffee shop. Sipping my coffee. I like it black, did you know that?” “Like your men?” ‘Excuse me?” “It's a joke… from…

Bruegel days, nights by Bosch

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no matter where we sit or how we stare— / all parades now march away to one day.

Appreciating the Adagio because of Hardaway

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Gary wrote in beautiful brevity of this most fabled story told with strings. Of it's breathtaking majesty and boundless power.

Trick Horse

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The trick rider arches

Oneiric

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- Of or relating to dreams

Two Drunken Elves Don't Know a Good Hobbit When They See One

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Wait for it. It's not the end of the world, it's the end of certain things. It's not that the sky is falling, it's that the coral reefs are dead or dying. I don't know how the ravaged trees have managed to survive this long with us breathing…