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The Coach

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We sat in the weight room. The coach walked in with his clipboard and stood until we were quiet.

For August and Enkidu

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Even among the thousands of black cats/ in the world, though, he would nonetheless/ be my favorite with those impurities of light brown tufts

Proverbs of the Converted

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a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single ticket

The Explosions Sound Like Gunshots

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The explosions sound like gunshots. Antonio Gattorno, absorbed in his work, flinches. He curses as he smears the brush across the canvas. He’s been painting since mid-morning. It‘s a hot summer day. Tomorrow is the fourth of July.

Happy Christmas to my quantum mechanic-

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this elegant silver wrench/ which from the opposite side/ becomes a golden Phillips-head

Rinds

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I miss Mother gentling the small of my back. She has forgotten me. Her little girl. Whose thumb she fussed over when a rose thorn scratched it and blood spilled like a secret. Whose smile she said was her morning sunshine, whose hug was incense. I yearn for her lips…

Hunters

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At fifteen...

Why I Love You

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I love you because your eyes are both crossed When you do it, because you’re focused On the inside of the universe I love you because You’re on a roller coaster Through life And I can ride along For the thrill of it I love you because

The Etymology of Fun

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Tell people of substance the truth.

Workingman

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He died in the ditch he dug.

Carrying you

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I woke up to the humming of an empty space in the shape of a sweatshirt,

Mosaic

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MOSAIC Your eyes coal-rimmed, busted, burned by betrayal. You and I, knee to knuckle, skinny with disorders and blurred around our edges. Challenged by our experience and the ash of past-love dusting the grate, the state, the…

juvenile haiku

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leaves of a season/float into a brook among/bubbles fit to burst.

Fear the Future: 25 Brief Tales in Various Keys of Woe, Fear, and Loathing

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The three were up early to await the deer with rifles, ammunition, and coffee.

Owen's Song

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"I hate people"

Toward a Critique of Everything Existing

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You got a lot of people, out there

A Pill for a Pill

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Some things I reject out right. That is I think I disagree As John put it. You can't play the game. I was never Too good at pretending. It's not that I can walk on water, It's that I don't mind getting my clothes wet to get away From all the…

Mirrors/srorriM

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It's weird to be here. I wonder if you are here too. You'd probably say oh that was years ago. And you would be right. But I like the things we believed in then. Some of them I still do. You're old I guess. You were so pretty and golden in your…

Not Lao-tzu's Yellow Brick Road, xxviii - xxxvii

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master carvers do not reduce with carving.

He's Just Not That Into You -Part I

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“Too perfect.” my therapist intervenes in assurance, “You did enough, really. More than anyone else would.” I know the subtext is that I possibly did more than I should. My appointment is coincidentally later that day, after his goodbye letter arrives in

Museum Pieces

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The lecturers are retired professors from Oxford or Cambridge. They are snarky and wise and aloof.

No, You Don’t Know What I am Thinking

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Scratch his eyes out, flashed through Edgar's head, scratch his eyes out.

haiku apolitical

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can they approve, our/gods in our wallets? only/when we tell them to.

The '08 Campaign And the Crash

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Here's the '08 presidential campaign in a nutshell: The Dems couldn't dredge up a white guy that even the dead in Chicago would vote for, so they went with Obama. Meanwhile, the GOP couldn't dig Reagan up try as they might,…

X

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We draw a treasure map in the sandwait for the waves to wash it awayI ask you not to leave me stranded hereIf I'm bound for hell, I don't want to be left behindThe sun breaks through the edge of infinityspills over the line, soaking the sky…

Cottontail Morning

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A murder of bunnies nibble the St. Augustine,

Speak

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I was not the first to hear the dog speak, though I was, I think, the first who thought to listen.

Parts 2 Through 5 of a piece called Wilderness of Humanity, or, We Can Always Clean This Thing Up Again

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2. humility You know what silly does? Silly guarantees that you will enjoy the moment as the moment for the moment. Clowns make fun of silly. Isn't that ironic? They are in essence the opposite of their own image. That's why so many people see them as evil--because you…

Genealogy

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You are an heiress to drunks. The statues of your forefathers stagger, memorialized by gravity, their faces half-lit eternally, as they reach into refrigerators for another something to keep away the cold empty.

Parcel

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you hear the knell of kindness long before its cathedral voices -- a recessional -- barters better times.