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having a bad day

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My mom said, “Carol, why are you laughing?” And I said, “I just saw my last boyfriend and his wife, who got married six months after we broke up, and it’s funny. I mean, I just saw them. They’re in town visiting from California.” And my mom said, “C

How It Started

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At two AM I went to bed, and the mill shut down shortly after. The silence jerked me out of sleep so fast I almost screamed. Choking and sweating, I lay there and tried to figure out why I was so scared. And then I realized: for the first time in half a y

An Idiot is Never Worth Your Time or More Mythomania for Your Buck An Idiot is Never Worth Your Time or More Mythomania for

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"It's a true saying then, that 'it's never worth while speakingto an idiot,'" answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantlyat Myshkin." - Dostoevsky "Why are you telling everyone that you are going to Tchermashnya, so that you think you're going to Moscow, when you…

At a supermarket checkout looking through a window on May Day.

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So I missed the May Day parade again.

Enemies Are Taken Care Of?

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You took me to this great salad bar once, down in Chicago, on a special date. It must have been for my birthday (how old was I!) I remember that salad bar. It was the only salad bar I’ve ever seen that had caviar. I loved that black caviar. They put it up

up to our hips

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This is what we will remember of each other. Right here. Another night where we prepare ourselves, as the full moon rises through the murky blue and smoke-filled sky, where the rose mist simmers above the land. And you are out there, somewhere. Only our

Epistemology (Revised 2019)

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RE: The big stuff: We don’t know RE: The small stuff: Half of what you believe is true but you will never know which half

sweet beast of idle speculation

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So, the sweet beast of idle speculation may be calling my name by memory, because I am capable of feeling, or suffering. I may be a conduit to such, because the rational soul provides the bridge. Some wild ass summoning your name, clean, uncovered, disc

song of the love atheist

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"chemical", love is/as long as saccharine is/served in coffees sweet . . .

I'm a Bohemian-American

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My first and so far only visit to my homeland of Prague was first described to me by a tourist guidebook, which laid out many of the fundamentals one must follow while travelling there. It was pointed out, for instance, that we would be “unlikely to encou

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

InSiDe

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dreaming in my cartoon life the car lifts its legs a hundred feet in the air

Flying Into the Sun

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To answer your question, “Do you think you left your soul there?”… No, my soul isn’t floating around in your bedroom anymore… you took it with you when you walked out my door for the last time. Well, maybe there’s still just a little

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…

le flâneur passed by worlds

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I’m wearied with these tired Potemkin façades / these elaborate gates for alleys all blind / worn out with walking into dead ends each time.

The Dream to Build a City

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I tried to drain the ocean But only got a waterfall I tried to drain the sky But only got a thunderstorm I got lightning I got rain I had to build a city By blowing on the palm of my hand The sands rose up The dust blew away And all

You're Never Going to Break My Heart

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Like any lovable lump of hidden rocks, these hills she breathes life into, blinking existence, are all well worth jumping up and over again and again. Just ask the little kids. Their endless landscape of discovery…

Neverfull

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Neverfull There are still things out there I haven't seen— a mere tadpole blindly clinging to the base of the pond. I reach for every star in the inkwell but none are close enough— even on toes tickling the edge you'll never…

3 Dollar Bills

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At home I cranked the oven and stuffed both pizzas in there and when they were ready I ate every crumb of both pies.

The Rag & Bone Armada Breaks Rank Upon the Barrier Reef like the Torpedo It Really is and Sinks Its Target with a Wink and a...

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When it's over and done the dangling skeleton walks away in one direction and the rushing wind pours itself into the other. My concern is always to be by your side. Most people probably think even that is giving it way too much of a movie plot,…

The Morning

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Dawn is spreading its pink and blue colours over the morning. Pleasant hues, with children playing and birds chattering. A light morning, without commitments, without waves, open to promises. Mornings don't speak our language and don't make the same gestures. They speak a…

FALLING MAN

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Steve Kramer was a brilliant young artist on the scene in New York in the 70s when I was starting out as a writer. He built little electronic dioramas displaying stuffed rats in various bizarre settings. Flip the switch and they would get fried in a little rat-sized…

From This Distance

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Can you remember how we could each disappear completely. . . .

Take Abe To Mass

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Near Christmas in Chicago they used to have these pictures of a five dollar bill on billboards all around the city, with the caption: Take Abe to Mass. On the front steps before going into the church, we encountered a ver

From the Writer's Diary

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I must pause in his discourse to step outside and relieve myself...

Life in Outer Space

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Conveniently, the vistor had arrived when she was between tasks. It was still difficult for her to believe that it had occurred but she had the tangible proof there in front of her, within reach.

The Optimism Of Despair

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He felt sick at heart, as if he'd just been told he'd been fired from a job to which he'd devoted 60 years of his professional life. And for no good reason; the profession no longer existed. It had slipped into obsolescence, like blacksmithing at the beginning of the…

Rootless

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[This story is not racist!]

There Are Over 200 Religions In the World

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I am the man who was fired from a thousand jobs I was the model you saw pointing at the gleaming red Maserati At the Miami Art Fair, as if you did not already see it I was the girl named Calorie in that infamous diet commercial I was the boy named

Snacking Sneak

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He was sitting in the library, slipping the pistachios nuts between his wet lips.