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Postcard from the Asylum of the Nameless

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Hi,thought I'd drop you a line or 2I haven't seen all the sights yet,saw numerous tidespretend to come in,sat under some monuments,visited a few museums,rode a couple of donkeys.The weather isunpredictable, made me thinkof what you said the other dayand a thought occurred…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 29

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The funk of wet wool, stinky feet, reeking armpits, stale beer and fried food created a bohemian fetor.

Our Dreams Were Their Feathers

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The white moon is dangling by a thread tonight. I close my eyes and listen to it undress. Your halo fell around your ankles and you became see-through, but there’s a vast gulf between being pretty, and pretty dangerous. Still, I’ve s

Listen To Our Birds

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We know a poem isn't going to stop you From invading our town. It won't get you to Listen to our birds any more than to our Sunsets. That's not why we do it. We know A poem isn't going to break the blade of Your knife like an…

A Change in Plan

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Times were tough back then. Just a few jobs. This was in the late thirties. It's the story of how Albert hooked up with Iris. Their unlikely meeting took place when they met out on the Highway 61 right-of-way just outside of Natchez, Mississippi, each trying to hitch…

The Painter, the Actor, the Piano Player

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1.As fast as that I wake to astonishing desire. I'd met you at my parents' house just the weekend before but for them (them the drained students trying to relax, refill before their afternoon sessions) you are the stranger in the room,…

After Grief

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Within a day, she had a scummy apartment which belonged to the government. It had cockroaches, which she was not used to. They churned her stomach, repulsive little things. Not even creatures. Two brains, she'd read: one in the head, one in the ass.

Passing by Pallanteum

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Passing by PallanteumOr ‘Dido's Song' Form: Double Sestina, iambic pentameter, rhymed Who knows of hell, knows less of paradise? I've known them both, when vanquished in your eyes, When draws the kelp where lost men had their graves Below…

Atrocities

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My table offers up the gutted calf/ with carrots and potatoes yanked / alive and whole

blink

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far from this time

Anyone Can Do What They Can Do

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Cut my karmic rip-cord. Shower me in angel dust.Let me embrace the gray, this isn't loveat first sight, this isn't blindnessat the twinkling of any eye, this isn't the timefor the blowing of any trumpet.Anyone can dowhat they can do. Didn't you know this? Or are…

Blue Moon

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I suppose it was inevitable, This crashing of souls, This recognition of possibility to create. If we were younger, We would make a baby, The ultimate act of faith. Now it has to be something else, Nothing to force a track with night feedings, …

Attempted Innocence

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When they first met at the bar, right away he was sweet on her. He drove an old oil-burning Buick or Olds, going down the road like a smudge pot. He never kept food in his car, where it would get hot and spoiled. He only picked nice fresh

Our Story in Ten Photographs

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1. The ghost that photographs my wife and me has a peculiar sense of lighting. In this one, we are sitting at the kitchen table of our old apartment. The table is made of glass. There is nothing on the table except our elbows. She has lowered her head between her…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 28

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On Monday, Michiko returned from Cleveland in a foul mood. She called Frank’s studio at three in the afternoon.

Decoy

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No one saw him arrive at the half-moon garden just south of Delancey, no one saw him hang his cage from one of the drainage pipes, but by the time the rest of us got there, the bamboo frame was already covered with silky, golden cloth that reflected the e

Sundays

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Sundays I drive her to the cemetery to visit her husband of fifty years. I've had her for two, and when I tell her I love her as much as he did, she laughs. I have to hold her elbow and help her over the bumpy grass. Today it's raining and we brought just one umbrella, so…

Alyssa

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Before the paint spikes Coney Island to the wind, I walk home through the strum of a shield, colder than the one he left behind. For the hour I sprawl along the sidewalk in her laugh, crater's shadows for Wonder Wheel, he is midnight sun in The Last Waltz. Where the glow…

EQ

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Why Men Compete

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It starts on the Fallopian Speedway

Beyond the Brown Paper Bag: Baggers & The Bagged Items

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[THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CONTENT, AND TO RUN IN THE TIME ALLOTTED.]

Below the Surface of Things

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the heartbeat, the pulse of the darkened earth

Entomophobia

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And I admire// the orchestrations of ants and honeybees/ and the persistence and adaptations/ of the cockroach.

Old Beat-Up Trunk (containing a History of Forgotten Paintings)

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The world can still be viewed as a honey drop of sparkling rain, but not all washed up tears can be revealed as such. The stories swirling inside are constantly shifting their own gears, searching for the lost highway, and sometimes…

Karmic Rip Cord

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For the kid in me who fell head over heels all the way down the stars, I wonder where you are now. Slack is harder to cut than you might think, I have learned. And assigning the middle finger its true purpose keeps me pretty bus

Bloody Vodka

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Broken glass attacks me

No Alternative

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This story* is brought to you by

Mr. Pickle and Mr. Peet

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We got a sandwich at Mr. Pickle's, but they cut the sandwich in the plastic. Plastic wrap.

On Being Offered a Cup of "Grape Juice"

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I would drinkbut Iam unfortunatelychainedto a senseof selfpreservation.

ok

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this doesn't turn me on