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At the Reception

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"Check out these dudes,” he says. “They're all wearing kilts. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they're wearing underwear.

Redneck Haiku

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some local color Haiku

Where is Now and When is There?

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The floor dissolves beneath us, pierced by lasered/ glare of countless eye-beams.

Inmate Words

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in White Heat there’s a character who reads lips using a mirror to see the mouths of prisoners in other cells that’s how I feel when I talk with you

XAM: Paragraph Series

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Grief is to have given freely too unfreely. Grief is to have given one year too many. Wicked is to have wanted it to be given away that way. Wicked is to Sam as duty is to Mother. Sam’s wife is to his friend’s wife as one Mercedes to another.

Salzburg

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One night while in rehab I had a dream that I worked as a violin maker in Salzburg.

The Color of Music

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"Did you see that?!" exclaimed Judy jerking suddenly from her weathered Adirondack chair.

Appointment

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He stared at the mirror, his hair looked chewed up–severed by a miniature lawnmower.

The Work of Beauty

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the steady, persistent work of beauty

Fire Alarm

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You snore and the house is safe again.

More from The Chronicles of His Demise

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Dread and drudgery sour each day

On the Road

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how did they not know

Pick Me

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Strike me down hard, bolt of pure blue, laser focus square, blast of hydrogen nuclear, knock me on the keister, blind me down, oh Lordy Lord Lord.

There's Always A Tree Dying Somewhere

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Bonus included.

Bait Shop

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They wanted to go fresh water fishing, so I had to buy worms. None there in the saltwater town. Drove about 10 miles over the long bridge to cross the bay. I'd been there before. Walked in and a crusty, little skinny man got up from his chair. He: Watcha need? Me: Fresh…

Old Age

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Are they too old for life's little pleasures? The answer comes as I pass them on the canyon road one morning.

The Bet, Forever Boy, and Dangling

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a boy with a gun, a skateboard, and spray-paint

Extinctions

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Dinosaurs, a little boy, a hapless mother and mortality.

Whispers (set of 3 themed poems)

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Boredom takes a Snapshot

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Reiki Master

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55 words, slightly naughty

Falcon Street

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Marcy is two years older and got her period the summer before me. She thinks she’s a professor of everything, but she’s my best friend so I don’t say she’s being stupid or that her tangerine lipstick is smeared across her front teeth.

Just the Facts

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skin cancer walks along Zuma beach at noon

The River, Once

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once she went to quenchthen she went to scrubnow she collects dead toadsgrinds them with cornmeal to feed her sowsonce she ploughed the land toiled with her face deep in dark soil her back burning in hot sunnow she works in the paper millmaking laminated labels for the…

a prayer for lambs

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unsteady, they try to rise

Remember the Maine

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He remembered waking up on those lazy summer days hearing the sad song of mourning doves.

Assless

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I heard on WUSF,

Cut-offs

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The sauce is you

You, the Real Story

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I don't need to be toldhow natural you are, not here.I'm reminded every singletime I open my eyes.What I want to know iswhere have you gone? Whyhas it taken you so verylong to return? But Iknow the answer. You aresomewhere fighting for your dearlife. It's what we all do--in…

Here be Dragons

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Most nights while in his sleep, with his one good eye deeply shut, the old man can hear the whispers of the specter in the remote wanderings, holding the surrounding woodlands in its snare. The sound of it closing in, with the bones of the universe crushing in…