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Old Salty

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Cap'n Pepper tries and tries but Old Salty is never happy.

Tuscumbia, Alabama

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My dad at the wheel, my mother's ulcer inflamed, she puked her way across northern Alabama that summer, from Huntsville and the rusting rockets to Tuscumbia, the farthest any of us had been west. We drove through raw, blistered towns,…

Cream-colored Berets and Big Fish

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Alone on the platform, I waited for a train.

He Was Slim And His Eyes Were Wrong

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Trying to hide, and yet, what continued to permeate was the shiny.

Frieden

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After each piece cancelled the other the generals folded up their checkerboards,

Root Causes

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Slow Train

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In grief, I'd ride a slow train there with you, / one hand in yours and one hand on the rail,

A Boy Named Suicide

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Came to admire Kiyoko Matsumoto. Japanese. Aged 19. Lesbian. 1933. Jumped into a volcano.

Having the Boys to Tea

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And my word! Wouldn’t you know it, in two shakes of a jiffy they have shucked off all their clothes and are butt naked right here in my den. I don’t have to wonder what Mother would say if she could see them here. “Keep the noise down, boys!” I ha

You Never Knew

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You never knew How to express What you didn't know You felt With your words You picked on You taunted You destroyed Did it help To feel yourself Did it work To disparage Those who were Innocent and young Blameless For living …

Ornamental Onion

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i imagined myself & i was phlox saxifrage pompom ranunculus poppy anemone ornamental onion rattlesnake red ribbon nerine & i loved the painted tongue & i wore the rattlesnake

Hardaway's Poems Piss Off DC Bigwig

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Gladstone called him a ‘goddam nihilist’--

Breaking Eggs

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You want to read, you know where to click.

Blueberries

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Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…

That's Grace Too

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I read the ending to her and it was clear to her--clear as it could only be to a woman, to a woman you're in love with--that I had been describing her.

Backstory

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My editor even said so: “Ralph, the Karmann Ghia is the only car for Henry. The only one he could have possibly driven.”

How the Plum Fell, and Not Necessarily Why the Apple Flew

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A friend of mine is killing me With all of her lies. If I die tonight, you can bet it's Because of her. A friend of mine Is killing me with those lit eyes like Twin pyramids holding up her rambling Blue skyline. Look I don't have to …

Macarena Lithuania

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At dinner in Marrakech, Namid danced on the table, waving a white napkin, propelled by jetlag and poor judgment.

Tiger Milk-a play in 3 acts

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Imagine the poem written with a pistol at your head.

Breakfast

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Wake up, stretch. Check the curtained windows for sunlight or that dreaded grey frame that forces the covers to come back up and the alarm clock to be set to ‘Snooze’.

Phenomenology

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The universe is churn-

Deep Inside The Light There Are No Dreams

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Mack’s mind held a chandelier.

Iowa Voters

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I miss my fire from the first three races

We'll Always Have Paris

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“Tonight’s news begins with a Stone’s Throw exclusive. Intimate friends of hotel heiress Paris Hilton have confided that the talent-starved celebrity has agreed to marry Quaker Bob, longtime spokesperson and package icon for Quaker Oats cereal.

20th Century Anna

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Why can't you mimic your mythical counterpart? Anna Karenina? Have you never considered the tall dark stranger? The boot to the face, the fangs on the neck? Vronsky is Russian Gentry, a veritable prince and he swept that Anna off her feet in two sec

From Beyond

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Someday they'll find me face-down in a puddle of ink.

Alone

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It's not loneliness I'm afraid of. It's how I would be happy to be alone too much.

Five Bucks.

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“For Chrissake! Just get me one of fucking Tony's half-assed, made in China bullshit, getaway cars. My plate is hot!” I had never hated cars so much before. Not so much the cars, but the sound the cheap ones made when they drove past my house. The…

Taxi

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lost in a taxi cab, 4:30 am

Unsaid

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whistling some blithering tune, trotting around the kitchen in his underwear with his ribs, a long row of meatless tragedies that screamed for something other than the meal he was making.