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The lyre bird

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When silence makes his way next to me on the narrow path, I let his arm brush mine, and I stop singing with the birds. So, in the vast forest filled with songs and rustling, silence and I follow our path to the edge. Two tranquil strollers, meditating on the ancient voices…

Permission to Go

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Now that I no longer sleep to see you, propelled by this motion that is not magic

Hole

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For a person you don't know, a stranger with a lot of place, you think much of him.

My Great Sensitivity

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I'm mucked now for sure. No one's going to discover my difficult poems in a locked away desk drawer somewhere after the dying fact. I remember how it feels to be knocked out by someone standing next to me in a simple white dress. This…

May the Glad Inherit

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All creatures know death at their very core, a tacit default--

Postcard from a local

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Wish you weren't here, Moon man in your cargo shorts.

Through windows dimly lit

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Burren-grey, the sky through sky lights is cigarette ash smashed across July.

Frank & Frank

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Ok, so I know this guy, he's a friend of mine. A good friend, even though I think he's left too big a tip on the bar more than once. His name is Frank.

Surprise

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a shy girl

The Straps and the Electric

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The winter sun was going down and she watched it out the window.Light like shards of glass,time had melted.It took hold.She was held down by brown leather straps and she couldremember the smell of incense and little hands and little eyesof an infant cold on the bed.She…

The Best Kisses

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So I told her think of it this way: you’re my unlived life.

Ossian City

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I hear the shriek of the Laughing Lady

The Garden of Earthly Delights

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When I come to suck fresh raspberries' juice from your hair pressing the clasp of my mouth's purse on the oyster of your ear;

Hot Rocks

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We go to the spa on my wife’s day off and get a manipedi. A swarm of little women pounces and works on our fingers and toes.

New Kid

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Wild are the woods tucked in the backyards, tame the front lawns of green, manicured, with a hedge and a few flowers, a well-maintained driveway, and a garage door.

Everyone Else's Business

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"We all knew that the thirty-eight year old mother, with the house on the hill, was having an affair with Darren, a fifteen year old boy, but no one did anything about it. When he was sixteen the parents found out and were furious, but the police were ne

About The Author

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Gnarly Berger was born in a guitar case in Istanbul. His mother was an Iranian singer from Israel accompanied by a Turkish santur player & a French guitarist (Gnarly's biological father) and into whose guitar case Gnarly entered this world, somewhat by accident,…

Crown-of-thorns

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It's supposed to resemble the sea bed. These fish have never seen the outside of an aquarium and even if they had, they are reef fish, they'd probably get the bends and die if they went to the bottom of the ocean where the chances of them finding a cerami

Barnyard 1961

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The boy heard loud barks and squeals, climbed on a chair, and looked out the window at the barnyard and the faded blood red barn.

Kung Pao Turkey

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It was my grandmother's idea of a joke, but I never realized she was joking when she repeated it every Thanksgiving. She would sit at the head table just before Uncle Leon would carve the bird and ask, "It's an American holiday. Shouldn't we be roasting an eagle…

K Model

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Plans were all set. We were leaving this town. We'd been creeping around long enough and Marla wanted nothing more than to get out and away from the shallow, old bastard she married. “Fuck his mansion and fuck his country club”, she said. We both agreed that he…

Grief Has No Welcome Garment

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Twice burned, it buries its graves.

Tales from an Indiscriminate Record Collection

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45s I’ve kept wrapped in newspaper in the attic. These are all mine. Some doubling up in sleeves. Some pushing tears in the seams.

Never Been Down to Lonely Street

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“This is not turning out to be a wholesome project,” my brother hissed into the phone one night. “Yo, Alan, it’s ELVIS. It’s American gothic, and the child needs to know the underbelly of the myth,” I hissed back.“Did you, or did you not, wear makeup to

How to Pass among Mortals

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Take no form or face beautiful enough to cause warfare, or that which would provoke inanimate objects to song. If a tree wishes to flower in your presence, request that this happen very slowly.

Wax Off

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The time has come to scrape the wax from my menorah.

The Cicada's Cry

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In the cicada's cry No sign can foretell How soon it must dieBasho "Hear the locusts?" The woman lifts the child's head. "Hear em, baby?" The child looks blankly in the…

Make Music, Not Love

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We are/no more than heartbeats on repeat.

A Letter to the Girl I May or May Not Have Slept With Last Night

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Can I really be blamed? Look at the circumstantial evidence: you wore that skirt, which can hardly be called a skirt. More like a very wide plaid belt.

Two More Poems

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1. Weeds of the World (Unite!) We invade the invaders and they invade us, these little Blooming weeds. They raise five flowers and let them blow Into the winds like sheets of stars. All of us Steer by their turning tide. All of us will eventually …