1973 10 7
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Carthage, Rome subdued:/itself, Rome never long tamed./Memento mori.
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1972 0 0
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For years I watched behind the glass
While merry parties purpled past
But now the world’s a Solemn Mass
And I can only think.
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1972 5 5
|
But all that they found at the top was bloody red spatters on pure white snowflakes. And beyond that footprints that got smaller and smaller until they disappeared completely into the spicy green pines.
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1972 17 10
|
When I squint at her from across the table I can see the waveforms created by her carrier signal.
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1972 8 5
|
I could love them all, your people, /
Learn their differences, speak their tongues, /
When there is no one there to hold you /
But me, my arms would be wide enough /
To hold armies of your need. Do not forget.
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1972 16 14
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The psychiatrist was a man who clearly meant to calm his patients, the students. You could tell by his sweater and his neatly combed, plumy hair and the wire-rim glasses he wore. But he was not good at his job. You could tell this by how bad he was at cal
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1971 15 13
|
Poets who thrum jirble and thwack
Poets who thrum eat quorn with raw swamms
Poets who thrum are eristic (not shambolic)
Poets who thrum deliciate unto kench when they freck
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1971 1 0
|
Daddy? Yes, hun. What do you think about life? Did you ask your mother? I'm asking you. (lowers newspaper) Well, (squinting eyes) life gives you so much pumpkin. ! and (like a whip) and..? (brows almost touching the hairline)…
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1971 2 0
|
Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.
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1971 2 2
|
It was 1986 when I met you. We both lived on Decatur Avenue in a tank that had enough room for you, me, and all our fake plastic accoutrement. I was 30 years old -- really old for a jellyfish. Some people thought I'd die sooner. But I knew better. I was…
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1970 6 5
|
We didn't wear shoes in the summer, except for Sunday school and church. The soles of our feet were black and tough as shoe leather.
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1970 9 2
|
“Dad’s a dick,” my sister said. I nodded. He threw $20 on the candy counter for one small bag of popcorn and told the girl to keep the change.
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1970 2 1
|
When I glance at the bedside clock I realize that we have been making love in one way or another for nearly three hours now. I am filled with a certain secret smugness that I am still going strong. It has been a long time since I’ve done anything quite li
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1970 1 1
|
an old Black woman, a sequined black cap poised on the left of her crown of black infused gray hair. A gray wool shawl that seemed to perfectly match her hair's color wrapped her all the way down to her hips, where a battered pair of blue jeans rested
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1969 25 17
|
Whole frogs are/
too difficult.
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1969 2 0
|
According to the weatherman's morning forecast it was supposed to be a dark and stormy night. Unfortunately for Doctor Von Übel the weather had other things in mind...
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1968 3 1
|
A canister of unused laughter taken from the mouth of a baby not yet born
A splinter of wood from a cross, perfectly preserved in dark tea
taken from the belly of a dead Irishman
A milky vial of smog taken from the air of Los Angeles circa 1965
A
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1968 5 4
|
.... The sun tears through the windshield as if it were an six-foot wide magnifying glass and for a moment it feels to them both as if they are in a manipulated universe of fire and ice, storm and heaven, as it does when the skies crack and spread open a
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1968 8 4
|
... we both know how we go to fresh air like fish, gasping.
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1967 2 1
|
“Hear that?” asks my wife Amy. Books in hand, we relax on our flagstone patio. A shaft of late-day sun borrows through the maples' leafy canopy and deposits a dazzling, sunlit pool on Amy's lap. …
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1967 1 1
|
My wife and I were sitting at the bar at Brennan’s down on 4th Street one night, drinking too much without eating. Geary had convinced us to come down there with him, for two reasons. One, to give us the lowdown on where to stay and what to do in New Yo
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1967 16 10
|
I could have written her as is with long bushy hair, skinned knees, overhauls, blueberry stains on her fingers and teeth because she eats them too much. I love her better this way, blueberry-stained and wild....
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1967 1 0
|
Forever
Implies
To my recycled soul
That it is achievable
If only I stretch myself
Towards it
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1967 16 9
|
Sometimes you can't sleep.
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1967 14 7
|
You were given blame for action as experience by cause and effect now. If you take apart blame and even forgiveness is too rigid. She thinks of that purpose as to give men sexual destiny.
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1967 12 7
|
I am a romantic writer, true. But what comes after the romance is what fascinates me. A lover dying is the most beautiful scene I want to write. The most beautiful scene I have yet to write.
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1966 6 5
|
In my own case, before Ellen, of course there was someone else. She—well, she was someone who I felt as if I’d always known and always would. And I think she felt the same about me.
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1966 0 0
|
Soft voices in private, in the street,
city noise violence disappears
she blinks her eyelids
and I can hear the lashes
intertwine and pull clear.
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1966 13 4
|
I was desperate for a social life but I couldn’t go out because I was too embarrassed to smile.
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1966 7 6
|
85% extra dark cocoa:/biting into bitter darkness
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