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What It Took To Be God

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You had to put up with Sunday drivers You had to love children All children, all of them! This is what it took to be God It wasn’t fun You had to be patient, sometimes You had to pretend to look the other way You needed to lose your he

Viva la Doglady!

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The dog catcher appeared to be trolling the neighborhood in his doggy death van.

The Collector Of Twilights

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I like to collect twilights. I fold them carefully and put them in my wallet. They fit neatly between the dollar bills that have a weird tendency to curl. This bugs me. I don't know why they do that. Something to do with the design of the wallet. But the twilights fit…

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.

This Poem Has No Title

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...Or perhaps it has; It depends which way you look at it. Perhaps the reader may cite laziness As my reason for not titling this Any other than I would have done As now, with such a title As it has, since for some reason I never…

Valentine

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XO

Rodrigo Ordonez, Boston Traffic Matador

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Ordonez gives me a look that speaks a volume–Volume 4 of the Encyclopedia Americana, Birmingham to Burlington, which includes the subject of bullfighting.

I'm Despondent, Yes...

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Do you remember who Laura S was? She was the one who tore out Shel’s heart. (It so happened that she was one of Lynda’s closest friends, and knew all her secrets.) Shel started seeing a shrink after Laura dumped him, and he would go around s

A Poem Written About You Because I Missed You

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what i will always remember of you is of that singular sunday / when a black lock of hair brushed against your cheek

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

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“What the hell was that? Is that your take on The Deer Hunter?”

How the Sixties Ended, a new echapbook online

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www.echapbook.com/fiction/ratch

inflamed flower of your youth

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What was it about you that so inflamed the flower of our youth? That you could touch lightly that which illuminates all splendor and simplicity? That you could reach beyond mere flesh directly into the gates of heaven, and put me there, floating within

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…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 27

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Gabe had told the stewardess that he wanted to talk to Ben. Her name was Claudia and she knew whom he was talking about. That foxy musician Ben, thought Gabe, he probably boned her on some previous flight.

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

The Page Turner

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Her hands are swift and supple as swallows, bouncing off the keyboard in rapid-fire constellations of notes, because she's playing Bach's Concerto no.1 in D Minor, which is busy and prodigal and all over the place. She is Polina Olegovna Osetinskaya, a beautiful Russian…

Ratatouille

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The body receives its embrace but / only by the anti-body.

I heard You Like the Back Seat, Honey

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It’s okay if you do

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…

Breath and Shadow

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I do not like it when the dead look back at me.

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

The Option Package

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he felt like ranting about cars.

The C.I.A. is trying to kill my GRANDMOTHER!!!

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Don't forget to fuck me. Blow me. Suck me. Don't forget to fuck me. [REPEAT 2X]

re-homed

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aquatic, free-swimming or earth-bound

The Tertiary Stage (he probably thinks this poem is about him)

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They say his irrational outbursts and insane rantsare the results of untreated syphilis. Well, thatmakes perfect sense to me. I've always thoughtof him as a tessellated spirochete, a narcissistic chancre,festering pustule of a blistered imposthume. And whywouldn't a…

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

Geographies of Decay

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That morning arrived with the sound of steel pipe hitting the ground

My Yoko Ono

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When one hears the siren call of artsy high school love, there’s not much one can do except go ahead and crash on the rocks, sending incense sticks and candles flying.

Boston Artists Fight Gentrification, One SUV at a Time

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"I'm dreading it," says Kati Rivers, a visual artist who has lived in the Fort Point Channel district. "A bunch of fat suburbanites driving up rents and crowding creative people out of the little cafes and bistros."

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