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We call them the Removal Men

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They came early and parked up, under cover of the night and the giant oak. I only know this because people told me afterwards. Watching us, they were. It was six o'clock before they smashed their way in, scaring the three of us out of our wits. Baby Billy screamed the place…

Shorty

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“They’re not gonna shoot him?” Rick cried.

Sorbet in the Luminous Capsule

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Even in the brief flickers where your eyes and nose are visible you look gelatinous. Like a forgotten traveler suctioned to the side of an immersion tank. Am I sick because this bizarre spectacle is irresistible to me?

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 59

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When I returned to Brooklyn, I discovered some explicit nude paintings of a former student of Francesco's from the Art Students League.

No Dogs! No Dogs Allowed!

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the impression I had gotten of him was that he was fifty percent yuppie and fifty percent drug dealer from Marin.

Disappear Everywhere

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heroes and monsters

At the Jube

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I started walking around the Jube like any other sheep, lemming, or penguin: passing plate glass windows, one after another.

The End of Coffee

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I am getting twisted like a cruller into the mess I have made of this morning and I am stretching the meaning of morning to way past its boundaries.

Head Holding

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"...a head dizzy from my abuse."

Kraken

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A likeness borne in silk, rich contours of canvas giving life to the seascape.

Dick Be Gone

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One thing about being a musician—more specifically a drummer—struggling against the cost of living—more specifically the cost of living in the Bay Area—is that I will do just about anything to earn money.

Mercury Unbound - 6

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Liszt, Piano Sonata in B minor. I don't like it but I can't stop listening. It doesn't fit my mood, or the high plains landscape, or the early evening, pink and blue, pastel colored sky.

Molasses

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My T-shirt read BOO HOO.

Adultery and Africa

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“What would you think if I committed adultery?” She pauses very briefly before replying. “What, you got time on your hands?”

Trailer Park T'ai Chi Brings Wisdom of Orient to Midwest

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He adopts a stance known as Part the Wild Horse’s Mane but calls it a different name--the Part the Hair of the Skanky Barmaid for a Bleachjob position.

Those Counterfeiting Cats

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Help me escape from this cold high peak and explore a galaxy unparalleled by synthetic pear alleles that make colors deceive. Cats like us don't like to go to the top of snowy mountains, for we melt into hairballs and roll all …

The Ghosts in the Meeting

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No one had told the newer tenants that the dead would be given votes, and they were in an uproar: it wasn’t legal; it wasn’t fair; it was creepy.

The Duck Economy

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It's early spring and rains leave miniature ponds not deep but attractive to a Drake and Mallard pair moving into the neighborhood settling quacking down. Not sensing transience in their comfortable puddle they get on swimmingly bottom…

eggs

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i ask you what i taste like and you say "not much."

The Light In My Arms

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I asked him his name and here’s the kicker, Leiby. It means lion. You know what? I said mine is Levi, how do you do. That means to accompany—like in the root of the word, it’s got that meaning. As in levayah, funeral in Hebrew. Does that only

The Power

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the silence of the hardwood floors blisters into fragments

Dead Uncle

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When Roy had seen the first of the movies in his dorm's weekend double feature that night (the University of Maine at Orono — as Stephen king once quipped, “that crossword-puzzle favorite”) …

Concentric

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In mid dream, mid journey, there's a barrier we must cross, flat and vast like an ocean. We're told the barrier is a monster. To cross the barrier we must maim one of its eyes. There, rising to the surface is half a large…

Prologue (excerpt from a novel)

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The clip-clopping of footsteps now echoes from the opposite end of the alleyway, and as you turn to face the figure who appears behind you, the figure wearing a fierce Noh-drama mask, you determine that this time you will enlist its aid in decoding this r

Miracle of Life

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We received the news unexpectedly. The suspicion was true. The nausea and fatigue were caused by the honor of your presence in our lives. We had waited for you for years. We had prayed endlessly for the universe to bless us with your gift; with you as our gift. And…

Three Thirds

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"I was hit by an Amtrak train and dragged a hundred feet, and I'm going to die from smoking cigarettes."

Like Five O'Clock

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She pulled the book off its shelf. It meant something else now. He'd quote her in the mirror, at the backs of buses that kept her moving, something she'd said without saying. He would remember for them. She'd forget, without him, the way she wanted. Garland and lights were…

Birth and Death of a Concrete Icon

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Homer relaxes in his tan, faded recliner, remote in hand, and watches death unfold on his television.

Journey

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my pilgrim tongue on the map of your body seeks sanctuary

Under New Management

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You always liked the color of your nose, raspberry red. It matched the glittery dazzle of your rainbow hair when the neon lights hit it just right, and man did they always hit it just right, the vibrant honey-yellow big-bird frizz and feathers, swaying to and fro as…