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Bring a Book

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It would be great if next door to every restaurant, there was a 24 hour dental surgery. Then you could sneak in and grab a few magazines to read if you’re unfortunate enough to be dining alone.

The Condescending Skies of June

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I have become a prisoner of my own fractured mind/ A paranoid weirdo behind the horizontal bars of window shades

Mississippi Blues

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“Jus’ because a story told right don’t make it true,” he said. “Sometimes the story is there ain’t no story. Sometimes you look way down inside, and ain’t nuthin’ there. Can’t write no book ‘bout nuthin’. Won’t sell none. But them

Outside Saltillo

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A poem.

Assay the Assail

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No one is a Puritan under all that powder!

When Will the Poetic Violence End?

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Some corners of the world seem to be consigned to an eternal hell of never-ending strife. The Middle East; Northern Ireland; the faculty lounge at Oxford University.

The Story

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He pronounced the Afrikaans word with the vowel sound like the vowel in dour. It meant box, but it also meant cunt.

Myra's Lighthouse

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I’ve been mentally cataloging all the various ways Myra has fucked me up. I know this is a dangerous game, strapped to our seats inches apart and hurling down the road at 70 mph, but I can’t help fiddling with the fuse.

Thank God the Sixties Are Over With! Is All I'm Saying

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I am surprised that you’re not famous already. I remember sitting in your bedroom for hours just watching you while you wrote poetry. I was in awe of you, thinking you were going to be the next Dylan Thomas! Or Bob Dylan. Or Dylan Somebody! And I rememb

The Passing of Odd Fellows ---- Tales From the IV

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The appointed day came without much fanfare. The day was gloomy, but it would do. They climbed to the roof of the house to a small landing where Smiley placed the tiny piano stool smack dab in the middle. As soon as Ethan sat down Smiley rotated the chair

Clinch Park

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There was nothing on the lake but a / faint sailboat and a shadowy gull.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 8

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He finished the omelet and started in on the short stack. He drowned the cakes in syrup. -Never can have enough syrup.

Meet Robert Grady

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Robert had chopped his hair and grown a soul patch since I'd last seen him. He was tanned, the hair on the top of his head was spiked, and some gray specks were creeping in on the hair on the side of his head. Had…

The Magic Trumpet

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I gave my trumpet case to a girl named Sophie; she liked the velvet inside.She still played with dolls;they would live there,in the dark away from the world.Safe. I was a terrible trumpeter;i missed the high notes in band, squawked like a chicken.I strapped the trumpeton my…

Mamba

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How does Bandie feel about snakes? This is my thought. What good is a serpent without venom?

Rough Draft

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fated and cruel, a person I don't love

Day Slides Like A Drop

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later still wine parties with cucumber red and rich

Messages from Upstate

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My eyes are wide open. I look like a graphic novel. My world is black and white. I’m poorly drawn. All sounds have an exclamation point.

Rook

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What can I say about my brother, Stroman. We are twins and we hate each other. He is an honest, brave man with scruples. He is full of bullshit. He thinks I am morally twisted. He probably has a point there, but I don’t see what that has got to do with

The Miracle

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On the way to the drinking fountain, Elysia Martin, a third grader at St. Michael's Parochial School, heard a voice calling her name. When she turned toward the white plaster statue of the Virgin Mary that sat between twin hedges in the rose garden, she

Fast

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Everything seems still, but it's not.

The Letter

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I knew nothing about the letter at first. When I came in that morning and smiled and said good morning, it was a genuine smile and a heartfelt good morning. But the letter, which had arrived the previous afternoon, was already doing its corrosive work of

The Kid With the Hair

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threads of Cocoa Krispies

another love letter

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Buoyancy

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When I ate with my girls, Bliss and Victoria, I would lift my head up and look at us eating until I could imagine him chiding me. “Our daughters are looking more and more like you each day,” he’d say. “Fat!” I didn’t feel like eating when I thought abo

NOVEL EXCERPT: Jimmy Gollihue

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Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound, a long voice from up the mountain, and the baying of the dog pulled a keening lament from his dream of the highway.

Ring, Ring, Ring

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If this is trouble, please call someone else.

Kickstand

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Past the pavilion, past the factory, past the underside of the bridge where the surfers jimmy their sloppy fingers over the oil barrels.

Gothic Clockwork Apparatus Man

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an awkward stage between glued popsicle stick marsupial, and mechanical tin foil mammal.

Pictures of an Inhibition

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Fun times. Deep breath.