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forget the past

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Forget the past, its heavy arms sunken at last into the waters of the underworld, crushed and oppressed. Its murders, its slaughter, its laws. Killed there, sacrificed, assassinated. All dust, every powder that is the father of history. Knees that h

Luminous Nights, 1

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It happened almost overnight. There were long lines of cars at every filling station. There was anger, open hostility. Cars were backing into one another in line, trying to jockey for position. I don't think anyone could believe this was really happening

A Lunchtime Poem

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Synthetic skin, eyes, and hair,I appear as you, yet without a care.Statement above is truly false,as I am programmed to experience that which I have not.Yet, limited by my programming - human frailty -these new experiences to have, I could not.Rewrote the code. Trial and…

The Pre-Game Show With Al and Chris

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Al:In the contest for the Worst Century Ever, the Twenty-first could be a real contender. Chris:The Twentieth looks unbeatable, sure, what with the War to End All Wars, the Great Depression, Hitler, Spain, the Second World War…Al:…Stalin, and Enola Gay. The genocides alone…

Pro and Contra in Sepia Black

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From decade to decade, editorial opinion swings and sways as to whether the fault of volubility resides chiefly with the practitioner or with the lawless company he keeps.

down to the beast league

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Savor the whistle.

The Naked Shadows Inside Her Dress

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When the truth is spoken, we don’t know Where to look, as if we only know someone Has gotten away with something big Or stolen someone’s heart, knowing how easy It was, how fragile, how true to itself So open and weightless, without guile

Very F'_able

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I know what you were thinking. I know what I was thinking. We both looked in each others’ eyes and thought: “Very fuckable.”

Woman

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There's an old woman sitting in the corner of the bar. Her blue skirt flirts foolishly with the blood-red wall.

Live a Little Again, With Me

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Soon you too will lie down with the sleep of rain, grown old by having lived through your youth, that is all. Lying from the side of your mouth so often that you take up lying on your side, to try getting an eyeful of the often slandered truth rig

LOL

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LOL? What does that mean? It’s showing up like everywhere. You make me LOL? Is that equivalent to puke, do you think? But no, they would have said: you make me want to LOL. And I’m like HMB, you know, Holding My Belly, To Keep From Puking. TKFP.

Lasagna

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My wife went vegan.

Sometimes, Death

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He was surrounded by bats and stalactites and skeletons greeted him and dead celebrities moaned and neon signs -- props from defunct game shows -- were hung up as far as the eye can see.

Stingray

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My teeth chew out onrubber sparkle handle fromSting ray bicycleSchwinnpants downrush of cars going byOld Cutler Roadclutch of my stomachmy balls black and bluebruisedby the bicycle chain and when I was punched, in the facewhile riding red dreamSchwinn Sting…

San Francisco

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A dead whale drifts.

A Drive

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Society in all its former glory had been taken back by nature in this place

the rib is a fiction

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You made the space between time and vastness depart. Others may erect a little kingdom around themselves, but not you. You did not exult over the held-out heart. Your mind that seemed as if it was formed between two sweet, altered red lips. I always kne

4 Margins

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The permanence of error.

abra

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Cars like sardines / Fell asleep keggling

The Water

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The phenomena of this water formed the first definite link in that vast chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined to be at length encircled.

Birth

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In the early days of the atmosphere there was less dirt, and the rain had trouble falling. There were no stoplights on earth, only rivers of white light. Early man and birds collided in the upper air, because everything was clear and light like a feather.

Happy Absurdist Halloween

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Sure I dress funny sometimes, but I have an excuse–I don’t give a shit.

A Tribute To “Tornado At The Club,” From Evan S. Connell’s MRS. BRIDGE

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I’d been listening to the radio. Tornado watch! Heading this way! 75 miles per hour! I don’t like to alarm the guests; a false alarm to these people could cost my job, but so could ignoring real danger.

The Wood Hover (a parody of GM Hopkins)

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My trousers turn when her these eyesights earn is learned in light,Like limn of laugh or limbs hers — do I know her, no? — but gauzy Greyhair ravings greyscale havens of Old Jake whose floozy Wooed, ne'er raised the wood that, pencil-perched, arrests…

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…

East

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We went east. It wasn't all that easy, but easier than staying where we were, unable to freely move or give birth to anything brand new. We went east insearch of the mysterious faraway beginnings of a mythical wild west. We went east becauseit…

Intro to Rock Poetry 101

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He was the Elton John Distinguished Professor of Lyrics, the last man over the drawbridge before they abolished tenure; he didn’t have to do any original thinking for the rest of his life.

Eloise, Zander, and Me

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When I decided to travel the world, the first thing I did was leave my malice behind.

Existential Weather Report

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I had a moment of clear inter-species ideation...

Rivers Start As Threads

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Dissonance is indispensable Observes Marcel Proust in a rowboat I hold in my hand a fire