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Apocalypse Haiku

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Burying the dead

O'Hare International Peoplewalk Tunnel

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At step blinding speed we all alight somewhere in the world

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

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 Pearl

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“An attractive woman is at a ritzy brunch. She’s drinking a really outstanding Bloody Mary and decides to try a raw oyster on the half shell.

Conference of the Birds

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If in the course of a discussion of improvements someone says: “I have no idea” in a particular way at a particular moment, “I have no idea” will migrate and soon lots of people will find themselves saying “I have no idea” again and again without knowing

Ripple Effect

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I discovered Ripple (by that fine winemaker Gallo) in a dusty “specials” bin at the back of a liquor store near skid row, off Maxwell Street, downtown Chicago. You may remember me bringing these bottles home with their screw-off caps. We drank tons

Wisdom Is Death

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for Edward Victory is death. Rock stardom is death. Life is murderous.Love's still beaded much longer and stronger than any row of round headed lovers. You can't stop death from turning to face you, but itsnot exactly expecting your poem's referral either. In…

Meanwhile the consultant is saying

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For example a comet hits the earth and everything is on fire is the kind of changed change that can really disrupt your change management and change your journey of change into a running away.

Blurbmonger

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Rick is short, red-haired and looks like his head has been plopped directly onto his torso. Francine is six foot two, likes guys her height and prefers some of their height to consist of neck.

Woman Outside Funeral Home Lighting Up

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If you ever find yourself outside a funeral home lighting up contemplating the future of the unknown, contemplate this Maybe the cigarette’s wet on your lip and you are wondering why Or in the middle of the night you are lying awake and try sa

Filling up

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As I filled up today casually watching what I took to be the start of a fight on pump three, I never thought that this nearly full tank would be taking me to catch you before you leave.So don't worry, because I know you do, I've got more than enough, a nearly full tank, to…

After the Shark

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each to his / secret dream of the thing

Your Anatomical Gift Advisor

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Long story short, I need a new kidney and I very delicately approached Cheryl to ask if she could donate one, it was for a good cause and all.

Borgo Was 29 on His Birthday

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Borgo said 1979/So Borga remembered 1979/for him, just in case,/for what if:/ a driver license/or an act of god/or a marriage license/or even a lease/for an apartment/you never know, she said/ so he said, okay/you remember,/so she did.

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…

Construction

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A tattered bird had a made a tomb in tepid water, it was a puddle near the framework of a half-built room— but the soul's a swerving tunnel and the dead are waiting at the end: all sorts of animals huddled at the fringe where littered pine needles stand and creep…

Black Wheat, 5

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Maybe love shouldn't exist . . . If we follow this notion there is no great need Where does it come from, this great need? . . . If (it) is in the blood how do they get it out? If not, where is it If they do not allow thought

Grand

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The garden grew tomatoes.

Homage to Elizabeth Jennings

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Barred from hotel bars and restaurants because you drank too much, you won the prizes but seemed to disdain the people who gave them.

Killing Bin Laden: The Television Series

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Certain basic realities have escaped us. This is a good time to remember.

A Little Wine (to put you in the idle reverie)

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Amused yet? It doesn't matter and that doesn't meananything. But eternity in hell is just another knifethey use to keep you looking in the wrong direction. We can have fun. Please don't let them break your heart like that. They do their jobs because they no…

Toy

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In the store, multi-color kites dance along the ceiling. And in the costume aisle, a young mother shows her daughter how to tie her shoe. “Bunny ears, around the corner…” Glass animals shine in rows on high shelves. A boy examines lengths…

Time

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Time is the / gravy of the bloody roast beef of / emptiness.

Black Wheat, 3

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(it) looks out at the world from behind a film (it) does not participate (it) is slow to love . . . There is the image And they say they are in the world . . . Blood does not shake their hearts They lie and take your s

YOUR TONGUE

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I will try

Music in Berkeley

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There I saw a woman with dyed long red hair Dressed all in furs and a short tight skirt Way too young for her age And she was banging a tampon on her leg At the performance of Ramblin Jack Eliot And no one got up to throw red wine on her Ful

Another dead chicken

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in the chicken house this morning. The second one this week. I carry the stiff hen out to the back pasture

The Blood of Giants

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Everything sensed is a drop of experience in the cosmos. Writing brings on the rain.

Dear Credit Card Thief

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Dear Credit Card Thief, I think of you—hunched, green cast, a zombie of the ephemeral, greedily parsing code, stealth hands like a lover's over my plastic doppelgänger, wafer of identity, your key to the internet of things, to me. Did you have a pleasant…