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Longing of the Broken-Hearted

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I remember sitting on the screened-in front porch of my house on Illinois Street that summer that we met. I had just come up from school at downstate Illinois. I remember eating a peach and listening to the sounds in my neighborhood, just listening. The

The Light Men

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How far can a person drive until the outcome of a single stoplight no longer affects all the others.

Wild Oats v. Shredded Wheat

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Written across an old geezer’s sweatshirt At the Farmer’s Market in L.A.

Your party invitation just arrived (guest poem by Carolyn Martin)

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"I’d rather move a word around a page than raise a glass or pass a plate or work a room immune to poetry."

gravelortian part 2

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"you have plastic in you"

gravelortian part 8

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When I come to we are by the lake

Song

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I felt I should write a song To tell you what you meant to me Something I needed to find inside That surprised even me I was blinded by myself And couldn’t see that well What did I do to deserve you? I never knew I’d been through h

pockets

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That place was on a summit and hardly anything grew there and it wasn't for lack of turning over the earth or tending the loam and it wasn't either for lack of sun because the violent storms had felled anything that could block the light years and even decades before. On…

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.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 2

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“How did you come by a name like Vladimir?” I asked the toilet guard. “Sounds Russian.” “My mother’s Russian. You got something against Russian?” “No kidding?” “Real KGB,” he said. “She was in it when they arrest my father. Only way he survive

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

Wet Moses Cement

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If you’re trying to carve wise sayings for eternity to read in a newly poured sidewalk you don’t want to be struggling for meaning while the cement is wet.

On Fox River

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We were at Fox River and I was in the dark water, swimming naked beside Rick DeMille, with my light skin glowing as we swam up behind you and Sharon in your dad’s ski boat sitting silent in the water. And I could hear her whimpering, “Oh, Jesus!” when

cities like sepia and the second half of the dusk

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The source of things has broken open and that is why everything is around and about. I keep trying to tell you that but you don't believe it. No worries. If you are self-actualized and going in a routine, well, such is well enough. But I am telling you that I…

The Problem With Oils

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If you were a painter, and I a poet, we could have conversations about Picasso and Bukowski, and how neither one took a sober breath.

Eating Crow

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I stabbed a man at the Blue-Buick Bar and Grill. This may not be shocking news, all things considered. The man I stabbed didn't think it was all that shocking, even while it was happening. I'd had a lot of those energy drinks -- six or seven -- even before I'd puked…

The Soup You're Served

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He said hopping trains don't get you out the pot, it only gets you to the other side. But whatever soup you're swimming in, you'll still be swimming in it.

The Last Remaining

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Barry Gibb, the last remaining brother of the trio to make up the once popular disco band, the Bee Gees, comes out for his encore, to sing a cappella, “Stayin' Alive.”

Go Where It Takes You

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Neil Young told me, “Artistry is like waves. You’re in a trough and everybody thinks you’re gone and then you come to the top of a wave and everybody says, hey, where’d you come from? We thought you were gone.”

Practicing Angel - song

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I thought I saw you once When you were still quite young Surveying great beauty Like a rain shower in the sun And I can still hear them nearby Those sharp voices of our youth Shouting with pleasure in the fields While looking at the sky

Spiritual Awareness

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Amir was a ghost, and he was terrible at it. No one had taught him how to be a ghost. There was no orientation, no welcome packet, no handbook. Ghosts started in limbo with only a name, and nothing else.

Poppy Birds

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Addictive plants... attractive dancing...

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

Meet Robert Grady

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Robert had chopped his hair and grown a soul patch since I'd last seen him. He was tanned, the hair on the top of his head was spiked, and some gray specks were creeping in on the hair on the side of his head. Had…

Abstractions

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Sleeping at home gives an inkling's idea,of absent last abstractions. Muses surf unknown unknowns, through keyways of sidewalk approaches.And manifold techniques frame afoul light's fated But ultimate demise.When once of…

This Is Really Living, She Said

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She bought herself her own apartment That was when she told me I have a hard time getting out Unless it’s really important like work I told myself wake up early Get some coffee, but I oversleep I had a massage therapist come to my house

Soft Serve

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Smooth slope-topped plateaus Turn liquid as latex, With ridgelines of pearls That separate and run At the rigidly textured Patterned wafercone. Edible scepter, Its liquefying cap Is strictly temporary And mostly…

Bat (n.)

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Flying mammal with thin membrane forelimb adaptive wings. Amazing number of species from fruit-eating to insectivores. All capable of landing in your hair at night.

Things You Should Know, By Heart, If You Must

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The light is always on in reality The Gelatinous Mass is not something made up By the Catholic Church And even though a small deer may have come to the side of the road once To lick the salt from your wounds There will definitely be cheap fish

questions, alas

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If in one instant of follie I plea to you What am I? would you then not ask yourselfwhat are We?Would you think maybe We are oneand I would ask to you my loveCan One, then, be transformed into Two? What is left of one after the sum?Can two be touched or…