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The Cost of Love

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I was, so I was told, the product of much hard work and a lot of invasive procedures. Initially, I'm sure my parents were making love, but then came the slog, the repeated failed attempts at getting one of mother's millions of eggs fertilized. Those tadpoles just couldn't…

On The Day That Norman Mailer Died

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Hollow as spit over rock Was the mood in the library...

A True Story?

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A couple, an unlikely match, came together for a brief interlude of time. It was marked, almost a kind of bar code; beginning, middle and almost end. Almost end was not "the" end because it was seemingly fated that they continue the journey through life, if not together, at…

Hemingway On Trash Day

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The morning sun rose up over the flat prairie, and the powdery snow crunched as you walked on it, and the air was so crisp it hurt as you took a breath. That is good, I thought. That is how you knew you were alive, and I was truly very alive, and there was not much to do so…

Buy Me Some Peanuts

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The voice on the other end mumbles, not forming words, but I understand: I am to be the starting third baseman for the Detroit Tigers.

Twenty Questions

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Did you take out the trash? Did you water the ficus? Did you cancel the cable? Did you take my black sweater? Did you tell the neighbors? Will you get the friends? What about the cat? Will you send me a Christmas card? Will I tear it up? Did you know…

Isn't It Funny How Some People Don't Think They're Contemptibly Stupid?

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[VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.]

I/ Robot

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in case something went wrong

The Tour(ette's) Guide

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There is a woman in here- I am never alone- but she is fully clothed in Detroit Derby Dolls gear and stands at a modest seven inches tall.

Pastiche No 19

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Remember Ben Nevis? Trying to reach the summit,seeming to take forever until it seemed to take a second,some song (not heard before or since) playing maniacally on someinstrument in our heads,or maybe it was just in mine.Familiar …

Where There Be Monsters

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“C'mon Billy, don't be s-s-s-s-scared.' said the voice coming from under the bed. Billy looked over the side and saw a pale white, bony right hand with it's forefinger beckoning him protruding out from below. The nails were yellowed and cracked. And long. Very, very…

Masquerade

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. . . music and dance, theatrical performance of tragedies and comedies . . . a primeval orientation, celebrating the cultivation of herbs and vines . . . ritualistic use of intoxicants, to remove inhibitions, to liberate participants . . .

Stuffed Shirt

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It was the losers’ bar in my neighborhood.

My Fuji Red Banannanana

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She had some fascinatingif incongruoustwins of swing hips.Her eyes made me thinkof opium densof fast women without a twitch,the sweet despair of gentlemen loserswith their 19th centuryhandbooks of moralityand witchcraft. But she only wanted mefor my Fuji Red…

(2) 77 Words (pcs.)

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The sometimes shiver that arrives from awkward silences and the more often cold that comes from midwestern winters.

Bike Gangs Show Sensitive Side With "Baiku"

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Some guys ride hills up and down, Then stop to terrorize small towns.

God on Paddy's Night.

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Paddy's night arrived in the manner of finding a half torn fiver, initial anticipation usurped by disappointment before a chancer's edge suggested some craic might ensue after all. A great crowd had gathered somewhere else, for under Hill street bridge…

Southbound

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Maggie leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the Greyhound bus window. Over the river and through the woods, she thought watching the snow west of Interstate 95 melt away into skinny pines and palmettos. Brunswick 2, Jacksonville 70, slid by riding a …

Velocities of Disputation, Fact, Measurement, Perception, Volition

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Contemporary cosmography tells us that both our extravagant valorizations of freedom and our dim regard for some conceptions and exercises of freedom are themselves . . . influenced by sheer physical velocity . . . .

A Language in Decay or the Progress of a New World Vernacular

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All poets that end their poems with words like cancer should be hungSingers sweetly croonAbout the blood of the lambNail pierced handsThorny crownAnd 39 bloody stripes. …

Walking In My Big Black Boots

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"People do that. They cross the road when they aren’t supposed to and get away with it. They do it all the time. Only, then, he might think I was a rebel and I’d rather he imagine me a square. A square who never was a wild thing. A rebel who chose to be t

Edward Ogle the Andy

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Concrete coffeecake drumbeat gyrate Andy Rooney ran a meter.

What's that on your glasses?

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The shit just doesn't want to come off.

Kwaazy Wabbit

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destroy the day rip up the track jump in the water eat nothing but bugs

Aisle Seven

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A young boy, breathing heavily from running, stopped at her feet, barely able to speak,

The Circumcised Heart

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You shall hear, against your ear, the beating of a circumcised heart.

The Pre-Game Show With Al and Chris

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Al:In the contest for the Worst Century Ever, the Twenty-first could be a real contender. Chris:The Twentieth looks unbeatable, sure, what with the War to End All Wars, the Great Depression, Hitler, Spain, the Second World War…Al:…Stalin, and Enola Gay. The genocides alone…

Playing Pretend

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“Can I get apple juice and milk?” “Yes.” “And a chocolate shake?” “Will you finish all that and your food?” “Probably not.” “Still yes. Get whatever you want.” The waitress took the order. Along…

Hotels (an excerpt)

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“Snobs,” our head housekeeper Denise called them in her deep voice, while peering out from under her glasses at me.

Rib Songs

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A thrum of imminent sentience-