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Poem in A Dead Language Only I Understand, Translated for You

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I used to be a poet, you know. / Better, in many respects, than you.

The Last Cricket of Summer

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The weather, mid-sixties now, will take its toll on this singular voice.

Tension And The Devil

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He reacted as if I had sprinkled holy water upon his furnaces.

C O N F L A T E

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She jumped into the hole the other day. The hole that sucks little girls into the universe, and doesn't return them. I had to watch it. I had to watch her sitting on the dock. Lean over, and fall in. I couldn't have saved her. Nor God. Or Jesus. Not the bridge. …

woke up in 2010//an exercise four years ago

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I am from slow diagnoses, impatience and parents skeptical of New York City doctors. I am from tall buildings, yogurt shakes, and envy for my brother's asthma machine. I am from here, stay away from there, don't get too close, be careful at the edge, the…

Pre-determination

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She never saw me pull the wings off live flies or throw wood lice in the fire just to see them shrivel, drown a beetle in a stream of warm pee.

Who Is Don Galt?

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Don Galt’s butterflies swallowed Peter Robinson’s holdings on a cool and cloudy December afternoon.

Carnival

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I’m well aware of the shadow stalking just to my left, her mannish voice flirting with my sensibilities.

benedictus

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he wanders the house/ crying for the hairless tomcat/ (gone for the night/ on an overnight job).

Winter in Waveland

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They build them high they do in Waveland, Mississippi.The tall houses with their skinny thighs spread wide flirting with the dusky coast, like antebellum ladies petticoats lifted, stockings wetted, ankles bared, savingtheir hems from the unpredictable tide,…

An ode to ill-used apostrophe’s

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Fragment’s of ignorance strewn by a haphazard hand

WE TURNED THE SAFETY OFF

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It’s not like I could tell anyone. I hum a song my mother sang to me as a child. A dressed-up soprano to calm the tail I’ve grown.

Fictionaut or Not? Write On.

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Okay, I'm here; I'm participating. Enjoying the back & forth with other writers. Waiting for penises and fetuses to move down the "Most Recent" list, but working around them. Well, that's kind of unintentionally visual.This essay, like many other reads on here, is…

Puppet ABC - 1

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I am not a Road Scholar, ladies & gentlemen, though I’ve been On the Road more than once. Do not mistake me for a bum. I am not a hobo, homeless or otherwise, in this life or any other, I am not a bum, I insist. But I d

just plain Jerry

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I remember one afternoon when Terry and I did it in broad daylight in a nearby park in Lombard, or Glen Ellen. This was after we had broken up already and I was seeing Jolene, I think, before leaving to go out to my writing program at U.C. Irvine. It wa

Grounded

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No temporary solace upon this patch of earth, stymied in your injury; labored by your girth.

Aftermath

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They waited not a moment longer than was necessary But moved right in and Began their loathsome ch

ghosts

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conflicts in time

Cold, wet and dreary.

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Cold, wet and dreary.The three words that describe Belgium. A country that owns so little identity. Sure, there are the mussels, beer, wafels and chocolate ... But that's about as far as it goes. The lack of identity rules the country, grayness rules the horizon. And…

CARTOGRAPHY

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Your brother is not really blind.

step martyr

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my heartis a brokenstandpipefanningcity water cayenneacross sidewalksgutters ripple redover fast food bagsand cigarette buttsover the feetof priests and pit bullsover the handsof drunksand babiesand into the mouthsof ratsand raconteurs you never oughtadrink…

Reaction

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Fingers of angry red welts crossed his face and neck.

Couch Potato Blues

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Whenever I get the urge to write a poem I try to talk myself out of it.

NEEDS FROM THE FOREST

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Holly Hope had met Latest Girlfriend once and was pleased to see that the woman wore stylish dresses, even if the end results looked like Liz Claiborne had tried to clothe a cigarette machine.

Joe

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Nephew Joe, my old brother's son, came to fix our pipes. Strapping, strapless, hairless, tanned, he clinked with gold. He came out to us over the pipes... drip drip...I just wanted them fixed pronto. He took precious time. He cried...drip drip...I wanted him to stop. My…

The Maple Leaf Club

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One of his operas was confiscated when he couldn’t pay a hotel bill. He ended up in a mental home, demented from syphilis.

They Would Judge His Trespasses

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They waited until the crowd was gone before making their move. Gill kept watch while Warren bypassed the lock. “You sure about this?” Gill whispered. Voices echoed down the hall of the museum.

Treading Water

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I was nine when I saw my first dead body.

formation of a black hole

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who can quite say/when careless talk & confidence/slips into that other charged thing/so minimal at first

My Nashville Song

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I smell ham and biscuits I ain't eatin' Triscuits No more No more, no more Gonna get back on my Harley With my mutt named Bisquick Charlie I just ain't eatin’ Triscuits No more, no more And I heard you know the score Yeah, I know you