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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

Breaking Up, Chicago Style, On Hardwood Floors

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We shut the door of her new apartment while Andy went back down to the car for one last load. Terry went into the bathroom and pissed blue. Blue, for God’s sake! Some pills she was taking. But she came back into the living room completely naked and pulled

Illumination,with grace

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Jerry peered out into the dark landscape with no fear left.

Nostalgias and Anachronisms, Past and Present

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Thus does time fly and we with it. Because time flies on the cosmic scale, curious things inevitably occur in local circumstances.

Wonder Woman Talks (On Rope) to the Foremost Job Candidates

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"Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow".. --D. H. Lawrence It's not about the lasso. That's so easily dangerous,…

they in that eternal room

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And while they sat and while we danced for them, they in that eternal room of theirs, illumined by late sunlight, or moonlight, (or the lamp in your bedroom,) our skin moistened with oils, glistening… each of us shining as we turned, emitting littl

Alcoholic Reverie

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My grandfather’s soul And his infinite high-pitched laughter Intervene And the alcohol that Brought him closer to heaven But that wreaked havoc Among his family And my father Washes down the gullies of the Future

The Summer Of My Beautiful Idiocy

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In the summer of '68 my father persuaded me to go visit my grandparents on their farm in North Dakota. I had long hair and dressed like a French symbolist outlaw. Took the train to Minot, spent the night in a hotel (watching Your Cheatin' Heart, movie about Hank…

gravelortian part 2

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"you have plastic in you"

Bleached Mutiny

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The geese are smart

Skippy Goes Sailing

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I coughed a little. Some bloody fluid sloshed in the rubber tube coming from my chest. Outside my door some doctor was ranting. He was looking for the patient in the room across from mine. “She's in X-ray,” the nurse told him. “It's Friday,” he…

Luminous Nights, 6

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We had to walk up to the fourth floor, and on those steamy hot Chicago summer nights in August, sometimes I would strip off my top before we even got in the door. I lived with my Siamese cat, whose name was Caesar.

Already There

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Best not look. But the children would.

Amma

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God love him, she used to say. you never noticed it much at the time because it is just something like a habit. a benevolent habit. around through the years and decades she went like that. God love him, she used to say, if she saw someone resting peacefully, of if…

Pebbles

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On weekdays the two walked,The man in front and the boy always behind,Away from the borrowed house and the kachina dolls inside.Neither of them said anything.The boy thought of things that just wouldn't come out,and the dirt road was always just wet enough thatThe man's…

'32 Ford

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Highway Z's white lines turned to dots in the rearview mirror as the needle crept toward one hundred. Buco horsehide warded off the cool night air as the car raced over freshly paved blacktop. Al's smile was as loud as the coup's roar that shattered the calm…

How To Tell If He's A Psycho (Online Edition)

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Aside from smearing your mascara, destroying your freshly manicured fingernails, and pulling up your skirts in an unladylike way, being slain is a drag! How do you know if murder is on his mind when all you see are his words?

Stop Short

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SoCo, Burnette's, Grey Goose, Bacardi. The good stuff. We drank Bill’s stuff because his parents were lawyers and loved to drink too. We just drank when everyone was asleep. Sometimes we’d invite our friends, or girls—but mostly it was just us. You could

They

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They had been part of the world for as long as he knew, but they were still an enigma to Timothy. They had an origin but he did not know what it was or what they were. They were both the source and the outcome. They generated and spread the information.

From the Plague Year 2020 Part 2

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So today was basically mellow. The blue jays argued over who would bathe first in my fountain. When a squirrel showed up, the birds left, but the doves took their place. Our local woodpecker, apparently recovered from a day long headbanging session, returned to the…

You Do Not Exult Over the Held-Out Heart

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You can’t know everything you want to know, about anyone. (Especially about me!) You can’t even know everything you want to know about Sharon, and I probably know more than you do. In fact, I’m sure I do. For instance, did you know about that guy

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.7 - c.3

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After the Cooking Club and Sayako formerly introduced themselves, they all stood before the sisters, listening to their story. Ren took a puff of his pipe as Ayane pressed her hand over her chest and Sayako took short breaths as her heart raced.

The Prison

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He sat uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair and his eyes glanced quickly from one face to the next. The room was small, contained only one window and felt as if it was encroaching on him. It was hard for him to discern what exactly was in the room unless he focused his…

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…

Carriages Wait In Long Rows

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She who is not a widow had once listened to the river repeat its story.

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…

D. H. Lawrence of Suburbia

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He drives an Infiniti.

The Turkey and the Tall Tree

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The bench was set by the waterMarbleAnd dedicated to a man etched his name,the year he was born,and the year he died. She had been suffering from a dark narcolepsythat reflected off the cloudsa lightening bolt energylike a screwturn screw and wrench.Door…

Sometimes It Rained

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He always felt safe with a gun in his hands. Back home anyway. Russ was from a rural part of South Carolina. A place where you could brush the humidity away from your face with your hand and drink down sweet tea in glasses so big, it cooled your toes. He was not…

The Bar at the Folies-Bergere: a Manet Painting

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The mystery is in the barmaid's impersonal stare. It's all there. Recognizable the bottles of Bass Ale And Crème de Menthe. Glazed oranges piled in a bowl. Two roses in a small clear glass of water. A wide gold bracelet on her arm, halfway