Most recent stories

Kneecapping the Muse

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In 1997, I was exploring a used bookstore in Camden, New Jersey, when I stumbled across a two-volume hardback copy of The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić, a book I had been meaning to read since it came out in 1984. At $10.00 for the set, I couldn't pass up…

Everybody Be Cool, This is a Robbery!

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Wesley did not rob banks in Banning County. Wesley Roberts was the sheriff of Banning County; robbing its banks would have created a conflict of interest.

A Clean Tent

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“No,” he says. A simple lie. “I -” He pushes the sleeping bag off of his legs. Their getaway reset was a mistake.

This End of History: Day 94

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Crashing icons.

Two Summer Poems When I Wanted Three

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That summer...

Four Brief Poems

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The eyes, luminous and large- each an infinite bright blue ocean Wind ruffles feathers My ego and vanity also/ encourage me not to wear a mask. An aberration/ that general circumstances/ will remedy, and soon.

News

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And the promises of promises

The patient

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He switched off the light. His wife was breathing softly. At her bedside he told her of her friends the roses, of the pretty carnation brooch he had pinned on her silk scarf, of her coquettish hat which fitted her so well. Small, simple and bright memories the heavy night…

Crosses

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Crosses sitting on the hillside

The Passing of Great Dreams

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I think someone’s Got their foot On my foot Not holding me down But maybe helping to ground me It’s almost like they’re Tapping the top of my foot Now and then While listening to some kind of Internal music Tell me What part

are you a life force?

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are you afraid sometimes, in the night, in the wind as it beats down your maelstrom thoughts?

An Interlude of Stephen Miller Thought

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If I have not heard of it it doesn't matter. My hearing is a life force.

End Game

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Where the Story LiesEverybody wants to knowwhere the story lies. Does itlie in childhood? Does it liein old age? Does it lie in anangry outburst or a stingingrebuke? Does it lie in a momentof compassion or in the recognitionof calloused selfishness? Bruisedlove or…

Spiritual Awareness

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Amir was a ghost, and he was terrible at it. No one had taught him how to be a ghost. There was no orientation, no welcome packet, no handbook. Ghosts started in limbo with only a name, and nothing else.

prophecy of the playground

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they deafen you with cute / knive you with sugared songs / with machines turn love to silicon shit / hurl you at the god Fun / debrain you in their schools.

Hard Times

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None of this is real, he says, and the path slopes down to a house that is possibly haunted. One always looks in such windows, one cannot not look at the predictable detritus of another's failure, a queer satisfaction, a fairy's dust. But no, not real, none of it. And…

Even if I was a Fool

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I enjoy the walk through these crowded woods. It's good to be back among deeply seated young and old trees again. That familiar smell, you want to always savor it so very much, to not deny any of it. It smells like a blue sky, the…

Carriages Wait In Long Rows

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She who is not a widow had once listened to the river repeat its story.

March for Me

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A son packs his bag - bottled water, extra masks, and jerky. Mom paces behind him. “Don't go.”

The Turkey and the Tall Tree

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The bench was set by the waterMarbleAnd dedicated to a man etched his name,the year he was born,and the year he died. She had been suffering from a dark narcolepsythat reflected off the cloudsa lightening bolt energylike a screwturn screw and wrench.Door…

Molecule

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Like the absence of a screw

The Secret to Everything

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You were still holding yourself In your own arms, when I first found you You were so fresh No thunder had ever spoken your name No lightning lit up your veins I continued to have the feeling of you Between my dream muscles and my lack of s

BEACH

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It's just me.An October afternoon.Ocean and Ocean and Ocean. if you keep looking, down the coastthere is fog.Only fog and me and sea.I imagine him before I see him.Slow walk just above the water line, the fog catching up behind him,fantastical cape.The rational…

In plague (o) veritas.

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...a falling forward that is sometimes so material that you get a look at your shoes as you fall past them...

With Eyes Closed

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I believe I will become a bear, snuggle up in a deep cave, coil myself inside my fur, close my eyes on hurting images, turn a deaf ear to the uproar of the world. Bolt my door to the deceiving voices outside. Sleep. Forget. Wait, as we wait for spring, for the violet and…

They

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They had been part of the world for as long as he knew, but they were still an enigma to Timothy. They had an origin but he did not know what it was or what they were. They were both the source and the outcome. They generated and spread the information.

walks from to walks to

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hands slide into gloves unseen / eyes disappear behind glass / the crank turns the flywheel spins: / every octave has droppt low / sub-sonic shudders within—

far beyond

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far beyond the far beyond sparkles the stars like sparkles

Stroke One, Stroke Two, Stroke Three

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On Monday, May 7, 2018, at the age of 67, I had a stroke.

A Journal of the Plague Year: Day 76: Specters of the Sixties

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" If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face--forever." 1984, George Orwell