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About My Dad

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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

The Spaceman and the Venusian Vampire Vixens

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It’s late July, and I’ve just been given the assignment to cover Paganfoil’s ‘Warbird’ tour. To tell you the truth, I really loathe this assignment. I never, ever, EVER cared for hard rock or heavy metal or whatever they’re calling it this dec

Tomorrows Never Written and Subsequent Unrehearsed Memory

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For some, a vertical pattern will evoke prison bars, for others, product bar codes.

Comes After Cato

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When they called him down there to the morgue to identify the body, he drove behind the wheel of his truck like some steady maniac on a long haul. The Ford 150 cried out for new shocks, but that hardly mattered. Mud plastered side panels and…

Estranged

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He kind of enjoyed living by himself. It was nice and peaceful.

20 Things I Learned about Norman Rockwell from "American Mirror, The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell"

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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…

When a Bowl Hits a Tree

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You would think when a bowl hits a tree the sound would be fierce, a loud clatter as stoneware explodes on birch bark dispersing shards in daffodils and grape muscari, but the noise is gentle, a thudding clink like empty bourbon bottles rattling hollow in…

The bridge

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as long as you have some snacks up there I can be brave

Bitterness: Poem

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Standing hard at the windowCold clouds move, slowBlue horizon in the distance—It's just a slice of blue.All this beautyI miss it in the bitterness.I'm consumed by the missingThe emptinessThe unfairnessAlways some unfairness cropping upand capturing joy.Glancing high…

Something Strange There Is

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Maybe God couldn’t find His bifocals, and that’s why my check for ten million hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe a stray dog in heaven ate my check. Maybe God went bankrupt like everyone else. Okay, so maybe at the end of life I’ll balance my checkbook. I do

Variation on a Variation of a Mode

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Borges must be so proud somewhere

Ingrid Bergman Answers the Call

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Out the window is an empty birdbath, dry flaky concrete ring, no birds.

The Shared Transgender(er)

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...I told Uncle Lou I thought it (trans-gendering) looked like a thoughtful way of occupying the world. It was a personal triumph, for some individuals, over the destructive affects of denial. Besides, it hurt no one, and it didn’t destroy property. I alw

Years After

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Years After she can go home.

Red

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Erwin came into the kitchen through the back door and went straight to the sink to clean up. Black mud and dried blood crusted his fingertips and caked the callused whorls of his knuckles.  He used the round of strong-smelling soap he kept for…

Death At McDonalds, or How I Learned To Love

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"I sighed heavily. 'Goddamn it...' I spat under my breath. 'Every motherfucking time..."

Wet funeral

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I know now, how she moves without verbs after you crushed her into the river.

A Woman Who Watches

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She was a beautiful woman. I don't argue with that. I welcome it.

The Clock Man's Trouble

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A lowing cow cracked open the darkened room like the yawn of a gravid alien.

John Lennon Slept Here (Or Was It Ringo?)

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Why is the ghost of John Lennon haunting a house in rural Oregon?

Woman

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When you move to the music of a woman

Cast Off Thy Suffering

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Somewhere along tomorrow, I will forget I have the right to do this.

Those (Beckoning) Lights

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The understanding we made was neatly wrapped up in its own blue tissue cocoon like a neatly rolled joint and dumped unceremoniously into the forgotten past like a plate of leftover digitized lies. The lid was slammed shut. Time passes too tightly. And you …

Suzanne

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And I watched, from her warm bed, the curtains dancing in the window

Mama's Boys

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A pale face was illuminated by the street light. A voice rasped, “Charlie?” “Do I know you?” “It's Bill.” The side of his little brother's thin face

Wings

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The trouble began in October, when Ava, an embittered receptionist who worked at a small museum housed in a five-story Westside brownstone, discovered that the floors were littered with enormous grey feathers

Chairs and Mirrors

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There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.

Momo and Me

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Momo told me not to mind her, but I did. At night, after he'd tucked me in, I could hear him on the phone in the living room, talking for a long time. Early this morning he woke me up and gave me my backpack. ‘Put some clothes in here', he said. ‘We're going on a trip.'

Amiaivel

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Once upon a time a queen was blessed with twin sons, which she named Nosch and Amiaivel.

Specimen Subterranean: A Review

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. . . the greater length of the so-called “Montebaldi Corridor” can still be walked without the least exposure to direct sunlight as long as the traveler is not active from 9 am to 3 pm local time.