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Not by Choice but Circumstance

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With small and fleshy hands/ I scratch at enigmatic stones,

Improvisational

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This is not her death. This is absent-minded omniscience. This is impossible. And then again, the inside-out, implosion. And the hall was clogged with bodies; none of them hers, but who could be sure?

Walking

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Who are not here.

A Circus Never to Return

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But on arrival Darlene was in no prompt mood to undress. "There's some ugly sumpthin' out there along the fence, looks like it's gnawin' on sumpthin' dead."

Birth of a Tiger

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He was instantly on her, pulling at her nightgown

Spring Ice

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...I stared at my good dog with the same entreaty I saw in her eyes. Save us. Please.

Ways and Means

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the bodies of the poor become/ a simple logistical problem,/ disposable as any gnawed bones

Hymen

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For me German was a school subject. For Hymen, who could pronounce German but not speak it, it was a poetic technique or element, shorthand for what ails the world.

Big Secrets

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O’Malley imagined the blissful, narcotic innocence of Toby’s world where soft-shell crabs crawled into people’s mouths and hummed a happy tune as they were chewed and swallowed.

Memoir 2.4

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He invited her in for a Martini and she graciously accepted.

The Art of the Ruin

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The ghosts run before/ attacking horsemen. A heart/ is ruptured by a spear.

Zum is one instance of "um" herein

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Millennium jumped strumming lithium gum cumulative outnumber humiliated résumé jumpy instruments

Love Cycle – a serial

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1. How can one begrudge the cracking open of a heart?When the lava love fire loaded insanity of self-control disappearsAnd the raw spewing beginsYou better be ready for the truthIt ain't gonna be prettyYou'll wish you were deadYou won't recognize where you areYou'll be…

Jack-in-the-Box U-Haul

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“When I was six years old, Dad came home from Vietnam and picked me and Mama up from her sister's house in Boston. We packed a U-Haul with everything we owned from T.V. to toothbrush. Dad hitched the trailer to the Rambler and drove us South, back home to Carolina. A…

Nevertheless The Plan Was Not Implemented

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Thomas Friedman was right when he said, “Much of this biodiversity in Indonesia is now under threat.” It had been this way since gasoline became currency; I remember bartering with The Governance for the newest edition of The Guinness Book of

said the fury to the shade

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let competitions in crime ensue let every madness bring let every sword be drawn let every furious rage flow free let anger know no shame let all blind rage inflame . . .

Post-apocalyptic Fable # 8

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Crouching like little children in a game of hide & seek, we entered the old house, slowly

We're All Guys Here

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The doorbell rang while Ron was masturbating.He closed his eyes tight. Tried to hold the image of Lori bent over the arm of the couch. No use. It was gone. Ron sighed, then levered the recliner down. Tied on the terry-cloth robe Lori had given him. He kicked aside an empty…

Our Last Night at the Nunnery Motel 2.0 in Milano

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They make you work For your pizza in Italy You have to slice it yourself While wearing a gas mask To ward off the cigarette smoke From every neighboring table While chasing away the Mosquitos and the pigeons The flies and the gypsy r

Assiduity Ten

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I'm using a 16mm motion picture camera with sound on film, equipped with a magazine holding six hundred feet, giving me approximately fifteen minutes of continuous shooting. Uzma has changed her cloths again. She's dressed for working in the garden, wearing a white…

Spring Miscellany

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Because we are exceptional,/ our 3000 dead in New York/ exceeds in impact that of 75,000/ burned at Nagasaki,

We are the miserable

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We are the miserable, annoyed, dismayed sick. We slouch on black naugahyde chairs too pathetic to reach for magazines. The computer is down the young receptionist has explained to each of us in young, florid style, complete with “I…

Tendrils

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you stand ashore

There's Love, and there's Marriage

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He didn’t used to smell that way, like a rained-on boot, like the insides of a lived-on couch. ... He used to smell like he wore light, subcutaneous cologne.

The Shaker

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A man and a woman argued over the size of the quake. They were sitting on the floor like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

A Diminishing Verse on Diminishing Returns

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My banker said, "We've millions we can spare,

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…

The Waves

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...some years later I heard that an old friend jumped off that bridge to her death.

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

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"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)

Woody met Louise

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Times were tough. They met out on the right-of-way on Highway 61 heading south, each trying to hitch a ride to New Orleans where they might find work. Albert walked up to her lugging a saxophone in a scuffed up case. Mamie had old cloth suitcase. After handshake bona fides…