2165 8 3
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Morning claims me from sleep before I can say noYou wake up instantly from your alarm clock's ringYou are bright, enthusiastic, ready to cooperateIt will be a good dayYou shower, dress and I prepare your breakfastEggs, soft, toast two ways, one with salmon cream cheese,One…
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216522
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Most nights while in his sleep, with his one good eye deeply shut, the old man can hear the whispers of the specter in the remote wanderings, holding the surrounding woodlands in its snare. The sound of it closing in, with the bones of the universe crushing in…
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2164116
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The voices he hears are God and the Devil and he knows the difference. Therefore, he is not mentally ill.
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216411
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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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216411
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. . . hands before your face, heart without blood . . .
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21642010
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2163206
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The book has known many women’s hands, something erotic and frequently checked out from our local library. Its cover depicts a man and a woman, both with improbable if not impossible bodies. I believe the term is bodice-ripper.
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216285
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As long as he could still take the stairs, he would go down there to be with the memories that each piece held. He knew that their time was about up, because his was too. His wife had already gone, and even before that she had long stopped using the washe
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216241
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Approaching the kitchen from the foyer the reverb lessened until heel and floor where flint on flint. No spark was made.
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216273
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Already, I can see that, whenever Harold moves, some of his soul escapes, like an accidental exhalation, like breath on powder.
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216142
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Here’s the story as compiled from the scantest of clues: The writing on the back of a stall door in the restroom of a twenty-four hour restaurant under the Gowanus Expressway.
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216184
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... we both know how we go to fresh air like fish, gasping.
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216143
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...I grew up in a provincial town which at the time had no bookstore and no library — no library even at school...
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216185
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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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216142
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When you finally got blood from the hard stick
You spotted the backflash of red
And said Thank God. The woman’s legs and arms
Were everywhere, and you were in the middle
Holding her down with one hand while wielding
A butterfly in the other. You stuc
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21602216
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My mother used to say she'll be just like you and you‘ll deserve it. I was a Punk Rocker. A rebel. Emily worries about things like grades and sports. She's on the soccer team. I got stoned under the bleachers. Emily, is a good kid. …
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2160169
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Sometimes you can't sleep.
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21591915
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as long as you have some snacks up there
I can be brave
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215900
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They got out wearing their crisp brown Army jackets and khaki pants; she saw the cross on the lapel of the officer's shirt and just knew. These men brought sad news from faraway places.
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215954
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You can’t take a chandelier on an emergency dash across a nuclear desert.
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21591613
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no one likes a bitchy cowboyhike up yer britchespull yer brim down'nshut up and ridestop making petsout of peevesand idolsout of gossipinsteadmake a hobbyout of yer horseand fer godsakesseason that saddle
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2159133
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The two were huddled in a corner of an alley, joined by some others that I’m sure wandered into the darkness when they realized they were far from alone. That alley was the one off Market Street. I used to steal candy from the corner shop when I was nin
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215982
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My dad drove a Model A Roadster
and had a photo taken of him on a hunting trip up in Wisconsin
with one leather boot up on the running board
and a .22 caliber pistol in his hand
like Ernest Hemingway and Clark Gable rolled into one
My dad ro
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215986
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no one else comes in my back door but you
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215986
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His middle name was Perceval. He judged the first Miss America contest in 1922. He saw himself primarily as a storyteller in the Dickensian mode.He claimed to be an illustrator rather than an artist. He disliked driving but loved to walk, and preferred…
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2158105
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I scare my daughter when she sleeps because she thinks I'm going to kill her.
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215864
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I put my arms around her and whisper to her while she plays the piano. She wiggles and tells me to stop it.
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21582410
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One sunny morning, a big-bellied ball of yellow fur surveyed a yard full of prospective adopters and ran straight to one.
She’d been chosen.
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215832
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He wasn’t there for the beginning or the end. In the beginning, he was still a wild thing. Nothing more than a voice in the chorus of the Dark Continent, back when it was a thing of terrible beauty and attracted people like the old man; people who breathe
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215822
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There are worse things than getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old Puerto Rican kid. This was exactly my thinking as he stood over me, his pre-pubescent screams sounding like a baby Bruce Lee, preparing to finish me off.
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