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The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 4

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“So, vot you think?” Vladimir asked us. “You want to come see these paintings? This is once in lifetime chance. Not many left who know about these. And I know where they are.” All the while he kept looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdroppin

Let's Do It In the Mud

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Then I got another letter, but this time it was from my friend Andy, warning me that he’d seen Miller riding around with Lynda, driving her grandparent’s Dodge with Lynda sitting right up against his side, and his arm was around her. I saw red. I went

Bumpy Ride Ahead As Jet-Lagged Hamsters Try Viagra

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Researchers have successfully used Viagra, the male erectile dysfunction drug, to treat jet lag in hamsters. Reuters

I Think You Know That

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you've swallowed a whale bone and not a whole chicken. It's not about being surrounded by very nice stuff. We always thought there was much, much more than haunted walls inside cold castles. People connect the dots like collecting stamps. Things get…

One Night Stand Before Finals

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There was one girl from Ireland, with her thick Irish brogue, who came into my bedroom early on the morning before my final exam for my Master’s degree in the writing program at U.C Irvine. She knew I was so nervous about taking the exam that I hadn’t sle

Rose Hill

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angels and lambs drunkards and whores

Christmas Eve

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It was Christmas Eve. Time for the ghost to visit. Just one ghost in this story. The ghost of a Christmas past. Just one Christmas for just one ghost.He looked out the window. Under the distant streetlight the snow was falling. He turned on his porch light. …

Woods

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We went to the woods to escape the failures that suck out your breath.

Broward County Love Song (flaxen from the sun)

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If the little buildings had hair the hair was as if sleeked back some and also flaxen from the sun. Men walked past there and of course women also all in the requisite wear of the world. We dashed felt pens on curb-sides writing our names in the world and way in behind…

86.

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It was late and Manhattan wasn't going to wait for us to wake up. We stumbled off the train — a few puffs of smoke left in our lungs and perfectly disheveled hair that made us look like we were comfortable with our anxiety.Steps weren't getting any easier…

Dog, Deer, and Boy

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A black and white Malamute chasing down a deer to the edge of the water, and putting her mouth on it. The hurt deer fallen into the water to escape. Red blood floating out into the water like cloth. The boy racing down the slope into the reeds t

The Transportation of Hens

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Sixteen hundred hens / suffocated / during the collection

Poem for January 1st, Feast of Christ's Circumcision

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Who has the child’s foreskin The mohel has removed? Who took the bleeding piece of flesh His human nature proved?

Attraction In the Night

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Everybody was out on the deck and you could feel the deck swaying a little with the weight of all the people. There was loud music inside but it was too hot and nobody was dancing and they were all out on the deck. Lisa was out there and either she would not…

equilibrium

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This is the keeper's pattern. Each time he continues his search, he reaches out through his gaze for an invisible line, wishing to touch it if only with his eyes. Each time he feels himself drawing near quiet panic sets in, eyes downcast until the threat

The Idiot King

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I stayed by the idiot king in his box, never ranging far, never letting the box out of my sight.

Intervention

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I got a call from Fiona last night. She asked that I come down this evening, to meet at Penny's place. "It's an Intervention, Al," she said, which told me everything I needed to know about what the meeting would be about.

All the Places

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we went to together are now, according toyou, not to be believed. A memory of athought of a memory, of an arrow. There isno earth. There is no sun. There are no stars. All theplaces we went to together are to be paused,allowed to fade into never. The river is to be…

Shots Below the Brow

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His self-assurance says/ he’s practiced in the art/ of self-deception

Kitchen Consciousness

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she's bent over and reaching into the oven to pour fat over a chicken. I just want to tug those pants down and thrust.

Clocks

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His hands are old But still function As hands

One-Nighter without a Stand, Even

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She lay down sideways on the couch with her large breasts spilled out toward my face, as I sat cross-legged on the floor, so that they were more or less right there in my face, and well, you pay attention when tits are hanging out in the open like that. S

renewal

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A raininess envelops you already in the womb. The water that began in the mouth a generation before you, away from any explanation, reason, or need for speech, and now seeks out the same dear lovable blood in you as those who came before you – these are

O'Hare International Peoplewalk Tunnel

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At step blinding speed we all alight somewhere in the world

The beginning

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I feel like I can never possibly amount to all of the impossible feats I want to. Therefore, I must try and discover all that I can in the time that I have. Time is allotted from our beginnings. Theories about where we begin are disastrously…

Nope

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Can't cope.

"Bitter" Revision

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I was thinking that the feminists pounding the city pavement had increased rent with every footstep, not that I was not one, but we had not earned our money at it or put our money together.

Ghost House

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Twig arms, Send me back then back again. The skeleton of our home Lives above the town

You'll Miss Your Destiny If You Are Shy

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Okay, you want the truth? I was never that good with strange. It takes me awhile to warm up. And I’ve got to be attracted, somehow. Like with your eyes.

Wanna Ball?

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She came out to Laguna Beach one time, and we saw each other at this party and she asked if I wanted to “ball,” as she put it. Yes, I said immediately, because I was famished and really wanted a lot of sex because I had just finished a three month project