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The Test

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Playa Conchal

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There is a small resort village on the northwest Pacific shoreline of Costa Rica, within the province of Guanacaste, near a town called Tamarindo. It is arguably the most beautiful of the Esmeralda beaches. Below Playa Hermosa, even further down than Playa Flamingo,…

Loettoer to the oEditor: Poet Frioendly Town?

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Aftoer roenting for 11 yoears, the ownoers are soelling. I livoe with a poet. Thoeroe aroe no availabloe roentals that will loet moe koeoep him. I thought Carmoel was known to be poet-frioendly. Studioes show that poets hoelp poeople livoe longoer. Ploeasoe oexcusoe…

The coffee shops are crumbling

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Isis and Artemis are going hunting with their hunting dogs

Incantation beyond Relief

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Double, double oil and trouble; 
 Spill and burn and caldron bubble. Back and forth make strong the stride. Even now pace the pride. Stepping stones that dot the slough make way for the clean up crew. I promise safe crossing. Straight…

Peg

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Peg searched around, his fingers caressing Jim’s leg through the fabric, and took Jim’s dimes and quarters. Peg paused, searched around still more, and took Jim’s nickels and pennies. Peg gave Jim’s balls a little squeeze.

Leash and Let Leash

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"I see you have a woman on a leash," said the man next to Bobby on the Greyhound to Chicago."Yes, you may speak to her, if you like, she may even answer you."The man glanced at Bobby to gauge his seriousness, took him at his word,"Excuse me, miss? Why are you riding the bus…

Mercator Projections

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the devil is beating his wife

His Master's Voice

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Twilight and Evening Bell

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sherry the color of mahagony its aroma round, crisp, velvety on a plate an apple sliced thin one sees most by candlelight when one sees so little I saved his letter to read after our Vespers open pour as his mind was…

Spare Me Another Poem To The Moon

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Your malnourished maniacs choke on gourmet reputations

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

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Marcel Proust had never been to a big-box store before. He was dazzled by the sheer size and scope of the store and the seeming impassivity of the shoppers. So many products, so many shelves, such strangely intriguing examples of the human condition. The people seemed…

Sunday Morning

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Elvis on a Saturday night in Hades sings deadlines and parlour tricks

I Cant' Help Falling in Love

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Time to story-tell the time.Time the tune was playedin The King Cottageon the Coco Palms Plantation.Its outside shower built of lava rock.Walgreens developed the vacation snaps.OMG: Was that a nipple shot?Time to tell it was his room too.Elvis in Blue…

Chinese Whispers

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The Poet Begs

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William Walsh Queen Anne's "Gentleman of the Horse," poet and friend of Alexander Pope thought Caelia proved cruel for not giving him the toy he begged. So he wrote in The Despairing Lover. William Walsh …

It's Not the Heat, it's the Humidity

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Maria Summer afternoon I love you I have good news The last day of school I long not to long Your eyes, absorbing not reflecting More like a garnet Not a ruby Thundergrowled danger Tinglethumb

I Kicked Your Dog

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I kicked your dog, Yes I did, I kicked your dog I kicked your dog Because it urinated on my Afghan rug It bit my maid and it ate my frog It defecated on Shakespeare's sonnet, barked at my psychedelic parrot, salivated over Norman Mailer's bust, snapped at…

Isolation

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Dried swirls of burgundy on the wine glass, sunlight from the wide window glittering from an edge on the stemware lip as she made her entrance, just then looking none the worse for wear, a blessing of youth to hide damage until it shows on the face, especially around…

Maginot Line

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We shared a bedroom, my sister and I, all our lives through high school. This was unfortunate, as she was extremely neat and I, two years older, was extremely messy. In my defense, I was extremely clean and she was not. There is a…

A Sonnet Washed Over

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Limpets squat on rock each in its own spot made to fit where a taut muscular …

The Only Good Thing

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The slick compartments of chilli peppers and spiced corn and onions and mustard were barely visible through the bodies and rings of hair and soft loops of arms, and the thick meaty gassy air and the late summer air pushed the tent in on itself and I felt

April 1, 2020

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So I had a reading for the Library of Congress and I cried during the whole thing because my mother didn't have a funeral or a service since she died on April 1, 2020. Now that day is the day my mother died instead of April fools. In Spanish it is the Day of the…

The Prairie Doesn't Apologize

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The prairie is what she is.The ghost of me passes bypulling a cow past a long stretchof nothing but prairie grass.She was so heavy with milkI didn't know if we'd make it back in time.The cow's bell echoingwith the sound of the howling wind.Today, I am walking a…

Huevos

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I took this workshop once. A Life Fulfillment Seminar provided by J___ Mutual Funds. That was the kind of thing the guy talked about: Motivational Factors putting you Over the Top.

Wall

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Such is the duality of small towns: the hope; the smallness.

Depression

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I am one of 14.8 million Americans affected by depression or about 6.7% of the American population 16 and older. My episodes are cyclical and my first episode was at age 16. I assumed it was because my mother was sent to Auschwitz at 16 …

Outside Saltillo

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A poem.

I Have to Tell You

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‘Sometimes I look down, over this railing –’ —cars zipping tiny and soundless, the roads curling and the roofs speckled with white-hot skylights, dark mottled patches of repair, no stakes, no people, no noise – ‘ –and I consider jumping. Sitting on

Decent Men

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“Now let's just start again, real slowly, and from the very beginning,” the taller darker investigator leaned across the desk and spoke directly to the young male bank teller, face-to-face, “you say that she was attractive then — this,…