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Peripheral Anthropomorphism and the Fall of Troy

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For Hector it was animals. Rats, dogs, fish, and quite often horses – sometimes even lions. But for Achilles, it was always dead bodies.

Shade to Shade

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Cathy told the boy to sit in the seat behind her, and gave him her scarf for his face. He nodded and plucked the scarf gingerly from her hands, suspending it between the clean thumb and ring finger on his left hand.

A Letter to Saint Francis de Sales – Patron Saint for Writers

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I've been struck with a bout of writer's block, struggling to get pen to page or finger to keyboard....So I make paper airplanes.

Bitter About Pay, Poet Laureate Strikes Catty Tone

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Duffy struck an adversarial tone from the outset, offering up a first poem about improper expenses submitted by members of Parliament that ruffled feathers across party lines.

Grey Zones

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There are these unspoken zones,where everybody is corrupt,and everybody is a con artist.Half the people are frauds,and the other half are phonies.Each person trying to outwit the next person,while everybody else tries to pick each others' pocket.Simultaneously and…

Tour Guide

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“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”

The Stranger I : Vic's

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The location : Vic's Seedy Space Bar. No, that's not just a description, that's the real name.

In the hot seat

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I sighed and looked deep into his eyes. “There is nothing more powerful than denial.”

Short Terms Plans

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It's going to be expensive, but it's booked and I am going to enjoy every single minute of it.

The Clown Show

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Long nights on the road and into the ravines, wondering wordlessly how far they had traveled and where they were going, wondering and forgetting and consulting again the map, although they now travelled those forests beyond the forests on maps

Five Million Yen: Chapter 26

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Ben gagged after shot-gunning the scotch. He hiccupped and it came back up through his nose. He grabbed a napkin and caught most of a shot and a half of Whyte & MacKay as it poured out his nose.

Shenanigans 2 - Anticipation

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One Private View, four couples, not all of whom are adulterous.

Waffle House Worker Survives Wild Ride on Car Hood

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After three teens took off without paying and he clung to the hood of their car He wasn’t trying to be a hero sandwich or otherwise but climbed onto the hood when they tried to run him over There was some question and dispute over th

Walking Green

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1. There is a crowd of people walking to a field and since there are over forty of them, the conversations become divided and then subdivided in accordance w/natural rhythms. I follow behind. It is a football game. Makeshift. Twenty aside roughly. Almost every…

Cattle – station – church - meadows

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It may be her destination, but was it also her destiny? In a desperate wave of inspiration, she decided to let fate take its course.

THANKS FOR TRYING TO RUIN MY DAY!

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If you work with the public, you're stressed. Unreasonable customers. Demanding bosses. Reduced staffing. I love my job, but the workload is tough and getting tougher. What can we do to keep our spirits up?Play Customer Appreciation! It's simple. Assign a point value…

Resonate

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In September of that year, our neighbor Wayne had this idea that he could get rich by selling groceries Amway-style, and he booted his 12-year-old boy out of his own bedroom and put up shelves loaded with packages of spaghetti, cans of roast beef, soda po

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 8

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I saw it all, in a flash. Holy shit! I thought. This is good. I have to sit down and begin writing. This is serious. Dead serious! I would rather be doing this than eating, or fucking, or anything. It was exhilarating. If I could only keep this up, who

Better Off In My Head

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The morning news. The birthday present you bought me. This poem. My hair when I wake up in the morning, at any given point in the day. Pigeon pose. My singing voice. How much I love myself. Coffee. Sex. Not having sex. Having movie star sex. Ha

Making Time

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Sleep left him like a fragmenting illusion. Suddenly, he was awake, like something pressing but fleeting had awoken him. Once awake, though, all he had was silence and stillness. His pulse quickened, his…

ANYTHING FOR JOHNNY

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After nine months, I was granted early parole...

Riverside

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Talking to Shakespeare by the riverside, I am saddened by my lust for women, how my eyes fixate on the spit that passes from top to bottom lip as they talk to me.

Betrayal

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My brother Herb married his high school sweetheart right after completing college. This was a girl named Beryl, whom he'd met originally in Mr. Reinert's marching band at York High School in Elmhurst. I remember one day in particular in the middle of the

Affairs of the Heart

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The next morning, I was shaved, skinned and stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey for its untimely demise.

Good morning, Mr. Mourning!

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Now, I am getting angry! Now you want me depressed too! GET OUT! GET OUT!

Night Raid

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The president snapped awake at three AM. He realized he was a serial killer. Highly trained and equipped killers on his orders were summarily murdering thousands of raggedly dressed people in the name of Democracy.

Johnny

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He also had OCD. He had to kick every dog he met. Johnny killed a lot of dogs and was bitten by many others. He was a cruel bastard.

Knell Quarternion

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The Jester sat down on the edge of his mattress. He laboured to bring one gout ridden leg up to lay across the other. The jingle bell at the tip of his pointed toe mocked each serrated movement of his limb with a jaunty tinkle. He grabbed his ankle to arrest its…

My Secret Pen Pal

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What if I let it be known that I've been enjoying a heavy correspondence with Queen Elizabeth my entire life? We began the correspondence on the very day she was coronated. February 6th, 1952. I was four years old and working as a bartender in Cheyenne, Wyoming. …

The Afterglow

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I knew we were going to fail. The night we met, when we got out of the car, I dropped my green glove in that puddle, you picked it up but it was ruined. That set the precedent for our whole life together. You can't look at me anymore. My cigarette…