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A Place in the Sun

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What grabbed the mind when you heard about it was the way he did it.

Beach Scene

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Larry works the concession stand / near the pier.

Poet Begging on Subway Car

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The subway train pulled up and I shuffled on board. I announced to the whole subway car: “I’m a poet.” And that was all I needed to do. It was like a miracle. Someone got up immediately and gave me her seat. People got in an orderly line and began

Homing Pigeons

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Sometimes, they beat their masters home...

Dragon Lady

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What happened later that evening is unclear. When Mickey got back to his quarters, he was in good spirits. Buoyant even.

Objects in a Field

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Cacophony of an engine-braking eighteen-wheeler/ scatters the crows to fences, trees and wires/ in a startling chant of caw, caw, caw.

The Agreement

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Our Irish tradition is rich in Yeats, drenched in Bushmills.

Apprehensions in the Garden of Gethsemane

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The thumb, incarnate, knows/ the moment of the misplaced hammer blow;/ the tongue, incarnate, the cool invigoration/ of water drawn from the dark well.

And Furthermore

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clickety-clack, not.

(There Are Ways) to Come Home

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When you return home, one year to the day that you left us, you will wonder if you can do it all over again.

Confinement

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Even music relies on what/ you know as music/ for its power to enthrall.

Office M

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It is a sunny day in the autumn of the patriarch.

Perchance to Dream

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Catherine, after another haunted, bewildering morning wondered if there might be a way to hide from her nightmares. Was there a way to trick them? Shouldn't she try? She drove over the bridge, something she didn't often do, to buy…

1888: Mrs. Sherwood

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Margaret will take her seven away from his raging Irish hammers slurry Saturday night honks smashing red eyes. They'll board a secret train countryside bound where they sing the songs of her own dead Mam who lived poor in the world but…

I Don't Know What I might say

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But it all works out. I guess. Truth is something I'm sure I've never seen before, but the more time goes on, the Less I'm inclined to believe in it. Still I don't want To be one of those giving the finger to God And begging for a showdown with an…

Wedding

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It was cold in the church. The Lutherans were freezing to death. The Catholics brought their winter coats.

House By The Sea

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We were young, she said, it was all in front of us. We should never have settled for this.

Uncle Moscow

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He asked me to bury him in Vegas. Instead, I had him cremated in Trenton.

Understudy

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All young and loud and big and I swear her face like a lighthouse lamp, glowing—I remember thinking, ‘She’s drunk at nine in the morning.’

You Know Who in The Hell You Are Not Playing That For (We Are All Performing At Being)

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I've been avoidingyour beautiful fact for years in just the past few hours it seemslike it was the scariest plague on earth.Andit worries me becauseit's something so new that Idon't know what to dowith myself.Yes I wouldn't knowwhat to say…

Language

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this reaching, this striving to love like it's there becoming something we need.

Kind-hearted Assassin

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.

Tuesday

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Only last Friday, he was introduced/ around, smiling, healthy,/ a fine young man.

20. Smitten

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Your tunamelt cadence / Sank me to ocean floors

Still Life

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One rainy day I walked to an out-of-the-way section of town where the buildings were old, and the streets were cobblestone.

The 24-hour Date

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We watched kids tweeze snapping turtles out of the park grass. They dropped them into a styrophoam cup and called it the snap turtle home. When they grow up they will bite your arms off, their father said laughing.

Omen

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The bird sat there some time. Several minutes. My wife and I grabbed out i-Pads and took pictures.

One in the Numberless Series of Requiems

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We perform our chosen duty— naming/ beauties and atrocities within

August

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One moustache hair at moustache level on a filmy bathroom mirror. A red velvet spread on a big round bed. Dear Ma: We saw a bearded lady.

Migrants

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She is too stylish to be crazy, is what the migrant probably thinks. And he's right.