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The Numerous Uses of the Middle Finger

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They’ve got sketches for The invention of the middle finger At the Museum for The Gathering Clouds of Innocence So, why not go there and get a feeling For the meaning behind everything? Okay, here’s the truth I was so busy giving people th

Red Line

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The train it was Quiet people asleep It was 4:30 am. I lost her face with the wind. She never gave me her I never asked for her Number she …

Pictures of False Hope

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We were busy painting pictures of False Hope on the face of Reality. Tattoos really. But they faded with time. And I now know this: Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora, gray beard and long sc

Shorondra Reynolds

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When Shorondra Reynolds was a baby we lived in a Baltimore brownstone on the edge of Pigtown. Just me and my mother, when there were no single mothers, just Adele’s mother or Mary’s mama, or Kiki’s madear and their like. It was a time when a five year-old

O'Hare International Peoplewalk Tunnel

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At step blinding speed we all alight somewhere in the world

Existential Weather Report (Election Day 2020)

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Later, at home, on the internet, I assemble fragments of street celebrations from cities one coast to the other. I watch them and listen in the compressed fidelity of computer speakers. How strangely things feel.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 16

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He looked for Arris among the patrons. There were a few artist types and professional drinkers at the bar. Only two tables had customers. Arris was not among them.

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 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…

Existential Weather Report

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

You Couldn't Pay For a Review This Good, But I Did

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I’ve previously tried the old-fashioned route to get my books reviewed, calling up editors, asking friends who work at newspapers and magazines to put in a good word for me, stalking . . . I mean, contacting freelancers.

Excuse Me, There’s Some Suspicious Activity In the Men’s Room?

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Someone has locked themselves in the large stall They’re smoking one cigarette after another And pulling long stretches of toilet paper off the rolls God only knows for what purpose And yelling for anyone who’s outside the stall To go get them

Flash Wk 4: Cartography

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The surveyor began at the mouth of the Klamath and worked his way toward the mining camp. He'd expected to find a trail, but for most of the way he hacked through dense underbrush. The river shrubs clambered into the water, just skimming its surface. There were…

Consecutive Transplants

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The heart has always been on the sleeve Tonya really needed a heartShe was too young to knowNever forgetting itMichele found it in paradiseBut didn't know what to do with itWatched it fade awayBobbi could have easily had it foreverBut left it on the…

Imagination Factory

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I sit in a small office amongst a huge pile of letters picking out individuals and arranging them on a big square made of something like paraffin

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.

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…

the break up

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Well I, for one, knew immediately what these great muffled sobs were coming from the parking lot behind our apartment complex. This stud named Clint was dumping one of his girlfriends, again. Exactly how many were there? Could have been a dozen, for all

Small Talk

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Popping in to buy a tire gauge. Stumbling, drunk, on your way to buy cigarettes with two cops coming in behind you. You hold the door.

A Brief History of Water

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amphibians returning to the scene of the crime

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…

durations of flamenco

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thus is life conjured with music: human life / with human music human souls human earth, / hot souls the cherished fruit of the hot earth beneath.

Holden Caulfield and his Crummy Band

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Holden Caulfield starts a band call Crummy He’s jumping around the stage swearing at everything, every damned thing in his oversized raincoat that he never ever takes off for any reason including when there’s the slightest possibility of having sex

Orientations within the Zwischenwelt

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Licking bowl and spoon taste and foretaste follow.

You Better Quit Your Runnin' Around

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I remember it was late at night I was with Johnny Appleseed’s younger brother Bruce Bruce Appleseed He was the lead singer for the band Fake Moustache Turns out he was just a bum Set on vibrate Who’d bought a 10-gallon hat once But h

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…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 14

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-There are a lot of guys would pay cash money to be in his position. -Biteman, do you mean homeless and no ID, or married to Zoë Bontemps for three years? -Both. Biteman gave a loud chortle.

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

Bug Water

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Milton Berle bought a hot dog at the Stucky's snack bar once. True. I wasn't there, but I believe it.

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