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Beyond Penderecki

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From a window, the young Pole Krzysztof Penderecki saw resistance fighters hanged by Nazis...

The Book

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“Are you comparing the communists with Hitler?” “Are you telling me there is no comparison?"

gravelortian part 18

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A poor boy scribbling

The Girls of Spring

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The girls of spring, they’ll stop your heart When they forsake cosmetic art They practiced back when skies were grey and clouds obscured the light of day.

South 55

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This is a wife pregnant with spiders

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

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Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…

Your Mystery

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I took it in my hands and used it on my lips. The taste was just hers: her touch, her smell, her breath in the winter nights. She was in this. Everything we had was in this tube.

When I Became a White Girl

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“Actually, children, none of us will be having birthdays this year,” my father sighed. “Not even me? Why?” asked Charlie. "Son, this is what's known as a ‘one-party democracy."

two dudes talking

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“What about this shirt?” “I didn't know Gap had an ‘approaching middle age pimp' department.” “So… no?” “Yeah. No.” “Approaching middle age?” “So…” “So?” “Soooooo…”…

Facsimile in Boots

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There she is. A paper doll of me. The dress, the lilt, the self-hatred. The crowd thins and swells in want of a scene. Conversations begin, pretend, then halt. My gin and tonic sweats into my hand and I lick at the…

Roza

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Very upsetting morning. I've fallen madly in love with the cat upstairs named Roza. She's one of the sweetest cats I've ever met. Her owner is a retired Romanian woman about my own age named Ingrid. Roza has one bad eye and one good eye. The bad eye looks like a…

Flight

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I know what to expect because this has happened before. The darkness, the stench of an unlit match, The leathery sound of old wings flapping and finally that voice made up of feces and dust, ancient and terrible suggesting depravity and painful deaths t

hands

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He cleaned off the pump with a steel brush. Then he took it out to the pressure washer. Out there was where a lady that looked like a witch used to move around and sit on the fences like a crow. The air was humid, and the men were dressed in heavy blue coveralls.…

The Ache of Logic

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There is a the reason for the theft of people and the melting of gold

Me and Lord Byron at Last Call

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Byron's achievement, certainly quite remarkable, is to have raised the drunken monologue to a literary form. Edmund Wilson

The Wolves of Night Time Wrinkle Their Noses at the Thought of Running Towards the Sun, But Do it Any Ways

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Jesus was a cancer survivor and possibly a super nova.He ran with the Wolves of night time, with the women of the paleolithic era and hunted for meat when the blood didn't drip to their feet and create veritable red shoes like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.I am no longer in…

Field of Rattle

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He puts the briefcase on the sand and removes a pistol.

Flying Into the Sun

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To answer your question, “Do you think you left your soul there?”… No, my soul isn’t floating around in your bedroom anymore… you took it with you when you walked out my door for the last time. Well, maybe there’s still just a little

Eucalyptus

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It had all been for the children, hadn´t it?

What's a Horse without a Loofah?

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A horse is a horse Of course, of course Unless it's a horse Without a Loofah You better look into the mirror Check the picture window too I may not be the only one Who's broken Don't it take a little more When I'm not with you? Don

Apocalypse Haiku

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Burying the dead

Nevermore

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The strangest thing though was there were no people, everyone had vanished. No passengers, no train engineers, no busmen, not even any station attendants. I was alone. After checking a couple of doors and finding them locked I continued on along the plat

Can I Get a New To-Do List

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I got a male bouffant hairdo like Trump I can’t wait to develop patience And the next time I have a ringing in my head I’m not going to answer it Can I Get a New To-Do List? I tried changing my name to Richard Vixen Until the State Dept. too

Knock Knock

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The bad moods crash the door down like an overzealous SWAT team and wreck the furniture. The good moods arrive unannounced.

Settled

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Zusman snored on the sofa as Motel gathered his belongings in the dark. He moved quietly as had become his custom in the mornings. Initially he had tried not to wake his nephew on his way to work in the…

Chemical Assistance

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Through your veins

How To Break A Toe In One Easy Step

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Life is hard and toes are fragile, which means that by the time you reach middle age, you've probably broken one. Or two. I recently broke a toe when I got out of bed in the middle of the night and tripped over a shoe. When friends and family consoled me with…

Patterns

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He stood with his cardboard sign and watched the faceless occupants, watched for a car window to lower; there were few.

Saint Basil's

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The last of the Kazan Tatar Khans. Each dome represents a severed head.

Fabulous Bird

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Just let there be that self-moving thing, a sweet girl mentioned by innocence in an off moment because of her skin, because of the way rain beads up on it.