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Kneecapping the Muse

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In 1997, I was exploring a used bookstore in Camden, New Jersey, when I stumbled across a two-volume hardback copy of The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić, a book I had been meaning to read since it came out in 1984. At $10.00 for the set, I couldn't pass up…

The Lesson

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So, when Daddy grabbed that cock by the neck and threw him into the hole that he quick covered with dirt, I knew right then that men would play a subservient role in my life going forward.

The Other Side

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That was the first time I went over the wall. No bird opened its mouth to chirp. No wind blew. I staggered a little on the stony edge. And dropped down. I changed in a cafe. Shaved. Emerged as that rare thing: a new man. My clothes were old, saved for

Fifi Climbs To the Top!

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Fifi is one piece of work, from the Ann Coulter Tits-And-Ass Rattlesnake School Of Broadcasting Venom And Bullshit Like Goebbels...

Home in Biloxi

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Her father stuffed years worth of stories into the phone, a sort of begging: how the new dog rode in the golf cart and retrieved lost Pinnacles; how the garage’s rent was too expensive; how the doctor gave him new pills and how he had lost weight and cu

Edward Ogle the fourth

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Charted stars by the dozens / with a side of frizzle onions / dawn showers us with glitter.

Things As They Really Are

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I slide my CD toward Eric Burdon who sits, smiling and gracious and fatigued from Seattle traffic, at the table at Silver Platters, where I have just purchased ‘Til Your River Runs Dry, and stood in a line of old gray heads to have him sign it. I remove my hat and…

Becoming an Oates Girl

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She walked, thighs flaming fire-cold, without complaining or grumbling or cursing the goddamn Midwestern winters the way the others did.

Into the Mystic

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Writing opens doors to perception. For example, the glockenspiel smells of gardenias, but the catwalk is opening a can of Franklin stove. It emits fumes of fairyland and olive. And in the green and pleasant country of Scotland and England, vintage trains go…

Path of Least Resistance

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I followed the car-path tendrils/ further and further north.

This is Paradox

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Concupiscent you cling to a truth like a demon,but please, contain your self.By all means, exert, but once in a while,rest, the illusion of love is love and you have always known this, like cherriesand ice cream and pictures of Mount Fuji.One who has found yourself in a…

The Deepest Cut

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Smoke is pouring outta my ears! (And outta my mouth and nostrils, but that's normal.) The Fast-o-matic Supermart has changed their coupons. Now you can't swap them for plastic surgery. So all those tubes of New Orleans-style Cottil-i-Lard dog sausage…

A Few Good Band Names

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Auto and the Grease-Pits Sugar Cube Full Frontal The Holy Grill Crazy Al and the Squirrels Talk Is Cheap Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cold Zippers Destiny Howl Epiphany Critter Cold Kneecaps Crepes Pulled Pork Baby Seals and the Club

Curtains

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She wants her mother back and all I can give her is this—over and over. She doesn't want my mouth, wants no kissing anywhere even. Just this. Like this—quiet and rough. Quiet because her stepfather is napping in the bedroom next to…

Professor _________

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"First we’ll get a good workout at the discotheque where my lady friend works. Don’t worry, she’s already arranged for a friend of hers to attend so you won’t have to suffer the indignity of being a third wheel."

Poem before Video Store

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Last night was full of little fists

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…

Nodding Off in the Paper Airplane Assembly Line

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The world's anxious fire breathing mob still wants in, but they don't know what in the smoke they are looking for. They aren't really thinking in that intellectual direction. All these wonderful, friendly books you see do not hold the answer or…

Too Many Toys

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But the boy next door is worse than a dweeb; he's a prima donna and a bully and a little shit to boot. The divorce will only make him more.

Contract Love

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“If you guys ever get back together, I’d make him sign a contract.” I smiled, but cautioned, “Not sure that would work.” She answered with emphatic confidence, “You haven’t seen how good I am at writing contracts!"

At the Bend in the Road

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I was at the bend in the road thinking of Robert Frost but there was no fork, there was no yellow wood, there wasn’t even a horse to ask me why or what if There was no decision to be made just a thousand tourists from Prague

Snapshots

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On a street-lit night in Jeddah.

Saturdays with Satan: Satan Falls in Love

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“I'm in love,” Satan said to me cheerily. I could tell he was in a good mood. He was whistling as he came up my sidewalk. There was a spring in his step. He carried his mail tucked under his arm.“I'm in love,” he said …

An Elevator Door Opens

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What’s your favorite emotion? Mine is ripping the sky apart and standing on a star outside of time.

Tale from a Möbius Strip

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Francesca is a sweet girl and everything, but her incessant doting on Paolo is best left private . . .

Ice Cutter

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McMurdo Sound. Amundsen. Penguins huddled in a mass...

Fall Guy

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Friends of the bride feeling out of place like a church key at a wedding

Coyote Captured Outside Lower Manhattan Café

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I heard the patron yelling, “Hey, man! That’s my cappuccino!” when the young female snatched it and got away. But the police cornered her a few blocks away, licking the last bits of foam off her wiley whiskers. That’s how they knew they had

Edge of Wolf

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edge of wolf howls and howls past sunflowers and skeletons

Sunday Storms

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Poems reflect their poets. / Mine: ugly but loved. / It is just as well.