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Welcome Back

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I lean forward and take her two hands in mine. I look into her eyes. “It’s you and only you,” I say. She starts to cry.

Heart

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She drew her hands out of the chest cavity and looked at the clock. ‘Time of death,’ she said.

Three in a Major Key

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One can watch the grass green/ in response. One can watch the world green/ in response.

Confess another sin

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A Brief Conversation With A Man Who Fell Off a Cliff

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I asked him where he hurt and he said everywhere.

The Tease

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She was sick and tired of marriage. She didn't want to be a mother, but now she was.

Halloween Hangover

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Did someone say BOO?

Three Stanzas Ending with a Line from R. Crumb

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The squirrels will not stop peeing on the trees.

Tree Voices (revised)

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Shhhhhhhh...

Phone Call

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I could call him. And be done with this waiting but I refused. I wanted him to not forget me first. To bring himself to remember me first before I'd give him the pleasure of my company.

Love Story, a Sequel

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He hid in parks and abandoned apartment houses until his wounds healed. He ate nuts, berries, and seeds. A shy, gentle soul, he watched children playing on the monkey bars, and thought of his lost youth.

Metaviews at Metazen

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This is self-reflection or self-reflexive writing. Candor but not verse. That is what I write: not-verse. On occasion I write a poem though rarely an occasional poem. Instead of calling it non-fiction we could call it non-verse.

Rats

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He tried to call on his break but she didn’t answer. He imagined her on the floor, sobbing, like she’d been the other day. The grey rat would have chewed through a plug-in or some wires and started a fire. She would be ashes, a blackened corpse, reeki

Fear in a Handful of Dust / National Poetry Month 2015 30 Poems

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Fear in a Handful of Dust

When Your Poem Becomes Self Aware

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Where will you hide? Because you know it Will seek you out for answers you might Only be asking for yourself. It Will send many students to stand outside Your apartment and chant your name. It will beg you to perform its birth Again to the…

The Bond Trader Goes Hunting

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The Bond Trader begins his morning with coffee and a hit of LSD.

Bus Ride

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Pretty boy looks over at me and grins, got a smoke?

Chattanooga Afternoon / Let’s Talk About Chattanooga

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Let’s talk about Chattanooga, the cloud / mountains, the monastery bench, drunk / at sunset

Owl Watching

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I attended the burial of our affair when I found her notebook— maybe it should be called her diary—that she had foolishly left on the deck of my beach house where she stayed while I was on that short trip to Chicago. Numb at first, unsure how to proceed, I went…

SNOW JOB

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One sneaker in the middle of the A-Plus Pawn lot...

Uterus

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I describe mine as uterine-based hysteria or Sex Test.

The Little Dog from Outer Space

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I looked at her, shook my head and tried to smile. She smiled back, beaming a radiance that pushed away the chill.

The Last Birthday Party

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The boy giggled, splashing his father and howling at the cold.

Polly

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I taught Polly to turn on a flashlight with his nose. It became his favorite occupation and he'd sit for hours with the light between his paws, watching the things it lit—sometimes jumping up to lick the wall. He'd shine it on our daughter's…

What We Know but Can’t Describe

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We know them just enough/ to recognize them when we find them.

The MacGowans Flee West

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Some believe the Scots were encouraged to emigrate, hired guns as it were, to Ireland to civilize that population. If that's the case, we would see it as another evil English trick. In any case, we MacGowans are Scots Irish and Protestant.

I Don't Blame You

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for going forthe river and being blinded by its millionsof invisible fish, all sparklinglike pink enchanteddreams made of rosequartz and shaped like glassroses, who would? I fell for an illusionaftermy own fashion,but I could alwaysadmit mymistakes and catcha laugh out…

Swicks Rule!

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She waves her hand around, says, “Pah!” and starts digging invisible things out of the potato salad with her bare hands.

Mythologies of Self

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We lie sleepless at night, enraged,/ and finger the keyboard

Poets Who Thrum

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Poets who thrum jirble and thwack Poets who thrum eat quorn with raw swamms Poets who thrum are eristic (not shambolic) Poets who thrum deliciate unto kench when they freck