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A Little Idea

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I have reasons to believe she’s been stealing.“ “Stealing what?” “Steaks.” “Steaks?”

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 53

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—Francesco, said Zambrano, rising from his desk and putting his arm around Frank's shoulder. You and me, we're business partners. Regular capital crime buddies.

These Gothy Days

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(haiku)

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 6

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Frank met Angelique Brody on the street in front of his building.

The Art of It

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To write a good poem, one needs nothing but the whole intent of goodness.

The Bad Bed, 2011

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Im in bed. Bed. I look at the word bed written on the screen. Bed. It looks like bad but not quite. Bed-Bad. Bad-Bed. I have a bad bed. Lets say my bed is bad. It is a bed to the extent that it is bad. It is not good, it is bad. It is a bad bed.

Hemera Rises

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The woods. They say don’t wander too far into the woods, where those ghosts can’t hear you and the moonlight won’t trace you a path. In the black crowd of trees there’s something waiting. Don’t go to the where the siren is singing...

The Nest

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I am reaching out at you, to you from the nest. From the nest, please come to the nest, to see me and to hear my life story. From the nest I go, and then I arrive at the nest, suddenly, just in time to be…

Visitation Hour

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She watches too much VH1 for a five-year-old.

Satellite Dish (from The New Yorker)

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Just as one thing I say is “Don’t worry about me,” one thing I think is that you love somebody by living with them...

The Blueberry Man

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It was a Thursday. That's when I found out about the blueberries. Those precious, round little wonders, now forever untouchable.I left the note on the ledge of the balcony, taped down so it wouldn't fly away.It was going to come to this, eventually. After…

Red Sky at Night

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Floating in liquor only to drown the next morning.

The barbarian at the gate, a work in progress

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I may even invite the little man, who lives in the closet, to come out and visit me: Come over here, pleasure me, let me sit on your pink latex face.

Catch & Release: Dog Person Depression

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Instead, I get things like, “Why can’t you find a nice man with cancer or a bum leg?”

Michael & The Reaper

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That sound. Bone against bone. Skin across skin. Blood fraying into the unknown dark. He loved that sound.

John on the 9th

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"Excuse me. I believe you have a little something falling from your right nostril there," he said, pointing with his pinky.

The World’s Food Shortage Problem is Solved with My Insect-Enlargement Gun!

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People of Earth, a better tomorrow has come. I’m near bursting with pleasure to report that the global community needn’t worry any longer about food shortages and famine and the like. Why? My patented insect-enlargement gun!

Gather Round

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When they first brought me home, I was their pride and joy. Then, one day, they put me in this wooden box.

Gastro Ad Astra

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He had a simple dream: He wanted to become a star, and not one of those tv stars because those die, those die all the time, and before dying they usually become terrible shadows of their former selves, vile creatures who exploit their own former glory...

Clearing

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Forty years is a very long time to live with someone.Ellen stood motionless at the curtainless kitchen window, staring at the autumnal woods, looking for signs of the various animals that frequented her property. She had done this every morning and every evening since Jim…

The Fish, the Fisherman, and the Sea

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My father is remarkably clever. That is, for a rundown, henpecked fisherman. He has caught me again. He has me slung over his back in a rickety lobster trap and I can hear him huffing and the water in him sloshing and though I can't see his face, I imagine it is ruddied…

The Lioness For Real

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you happen to me like motorcycle tricks

Should Have Gotten Delivery Instead

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My mind raced at the endless possibilities one could die while driving to get a pizza.

B.U.N.N.I.

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Then I see her walking down the grass aisle: my assignment. She looks nothing like the image I have been trained with, but her identifier is strong.

Communion

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I dream empty, the wind blowing benzene blue. Shards of glass. Barbed wire. Bricks crushing flame into notions gone quick, never painless. Is it my blood? In my eyes. On my hands. Is it for you? I'm not sure where I'm walking here. Walking towards what from. Is it…

Private Red

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Your favorite nickname existed only in the bright red cherry smoldering at the end of your smoke.

Blackout

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The blackout lasted longer than anyone thought. From my fifth story window, the whole city seemed to shut down. I heard noises above me. How could it be?

What I Am

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I am a happy cog

5 Things I've Learned After 5 Years of Reviewing Small Press Books and Writing 2 of My Own

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In today’s print-on-demand and digital world, there are unlimited avenues for aspiring writers to circulate their work, but deregulation and limitlessness often leads to chaos. Writers are more inclined to release unpolished work that fails to rise to the

Mockingbird, Mockingbird

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I remember when I first came to California, I heard a mockingbird sitting in a tree, calling out in the names of other birds. It was down in L.A. I was staying at my brother's house in San Gabriel and driving in every day to the campus at UCLA to go to s