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Abecedarian inspired by Bill Yarrow

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Despite what the bible says, Shadrach and Meshach had no third brother named Abednego. To pay for his cello lessons, Yo-Yo Ma worked the subways of New York as a busker. Just chill. After Sal went into witness protection, he yearned for a job at the art…

Hats for Houses

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It is certain. The roofs are hats for the houses because you wear a hat in the rain or the snow or even and sometimes especially the sun. The houses are curious. They keep their hats on at night. The downspouts for run-off water are strands of hair such as…

Blowing Up While Fading Out

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It calmed the guilt in my heart while kids reveled, laughed, and "made time" with the neighborhood girls on that final night of freedom. No one would talk to those girls again.

Potato Head

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I weighted her so she would be suspended in the water. Sometimes late at night I would go down to the edge and listen to her bump against the filtration system. The sound she made was soft and low like a strange drum.

Hype and Melancholy

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Sonia banks on hidden things in the minds of other people, whereas I bank on what I know.

And Father Makes Three

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His father whistles The Torreador's Song in the kitchen; Mirko smells bacon.

1987, What I wanted

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I wanted to watch, for as long as I could, until my innocence, like balloons, disappeared from view.

Do I hear Ten Thousand?

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I cannot begin to list all the ways this conversation can go downhill from here, so I hang up the phone quietly.

20 Things I Learned about Norman Rockwell from "American Mirror, The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell"

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His middle name was Perceval. He judged the first Miss America contest in 1922. He saw himself primarily as a storyteller in the Dickensian mode.He claimed to be an illustrator rather than an artist. He disliked driving but loved to walk, and preferred…

Voltaire Drinks Thirty Cups of Coffee

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Voltaire drinks his coffee standing up in front of the microwave and he likes to hold one hand on his chest where his heart is while he drinks. He likes to feel his heartbeat quicken and then he imagines that he is a machine or something mechanical.

Sestina McRib

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And now the McRib is back. Two dollars.

You Write Books?

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“Somebody told me you write books.”

How to Stop Doing and Be

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Monday will come soon enough to get/ what needs to be done, done.

Estella

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Everyone loves a story of love unrequited. But what about the stories of the unrequited lovee?

Composition: 3 generations and a porch

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It is 1939...

The Summer Of My Beautiful Idiocy

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In the summer of '68 my father persuaded me to go visit my grandparents on their farm in North Dakota. I had long hair and dressed like a French symbolist outlaw. Took the train to Minot, spent the night in a hotel (watching Your Cheatin' Heart, movie about Hank…

Liberty of Cooking

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My dish was slut ("all done" in Swedish). It tasted good though aroused no draft, of mutton, for example. My grandparents' bed held flat. I filed alone, in realist kitchen, reading Froeding, standing, striding, continent as gym.

Dark Matter

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The darkness isn’t evil but invisible/ in the otherwise excellent light of day

Ghost

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It would wander the hallways after the 3:45 bell, after the last class, after the students had all disappeared with the homework they'd never finish, the papers they'd forget to write, after Nate the janitor pushed his broom through the endless doorways,

Sleepless #3

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My ex-girlfriends live in a pastel-drenched cabin on the edge of a hemlock forest in Canada somewhere,

Snatch 7 (come 11)

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...the scream and the face...

What I wanted 1976

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turn my Dorothy Hamill into a golden shadow

Move Along

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W here do you think you're going what'll you think you'll do running down this highway that you never even knew

Halfhearted Objections

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The old man behind the counter recognizes fear and anxiety in the boy's face, and sees the brown paper bag clenched in his other white-knuckled hand.

Vanishing Vapors with Mister Van Gogh

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These clouds are what I havewith me. Their language is minebut it is drying today aswe speak. I catch the darkeningsparks, but that's not to beyour concern. I am sure youshall go on. What I wantis to deliver your song. Idoubt it is for anybody else.Clouds are good at…

Because we cannot know

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Because we cannot know, we keep walking, keep getting up each morning, feeding the cat, drinking coffee. Because we cannot know I'm drinking coffee that morning in Thailand, not on the beach but just off, because there is only one spot where you can get real coffee,…

Did I Tell You I Have Stripes On My Socks?

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Kids are fascinated by me. Adults look the other way. Maybe it's my size. Or maybe it's the stories in the newspapers.

On an Iceberg of Words

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She cut me adrift On an iceberg of words And words melt As you know Looks like we may have Gone out on the limb A little too far without A toe-hold on Reality Doesn’t it? But I saw the headlines: Cows Bound for Slaughterhouse Make

True-Life Microaggressions or How I Learned To Live In America

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You speak English so well.

Beyond Steps that Falter

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I might wish I was anything including some dust on the shelf where maybe I might blow away unseen like the coming of rust