Most discussed stories

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.

1957: Kathleen Eulalie, Widow

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My lipline's retreated since Tuesday. I'll toss those Hazel Bishop reds, (lipstick on shriveled lips rattles men, scares little children) skip Woolworth's cosmetics counter, save backaching, ankleswelling pondering of powders, rouges, …

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.

The Flower and the Sailboat

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She looked at the flowerthat grew through the stone hedgeon a cliffwhere the rockswere stacked to the edge of the water.It was a polka dot spot of fuchsia, Petals peeking through the green briar bush.On the bridge,Staring hard at the deep water,Ripples of blue that…

Dad, August 10, 2010

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Satchmo sings a love song over the sound system. People read books, tap keyboards, drink coffee, eat cake. In Barnes & Noble—more a coffee shop these days than a bookstore—I am thinking about my dad and his stomach cancer.The terror he…

Yellow Pages

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Yellow Pages season is on us now, and Jimmy's drivin' a contract route. He'll head out to the San Joaquin where they print, and load ‘em in the back of his Tundra with the high side walls until the whole damned rig sags low,

Holiday Moons

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Not quite full, but bright,/ December 23rd.__ A waning moon for New Year’s Day-/ Portent?

Salmon of Wisdom (novel excerpt, Jimmy Gollihue)

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Honey, you eat this salmon, now

One Last Hurrah, #1

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She was about 35 or so and noticeably pregnant. She was near hysteria when she knocked on our apartment door, right across the street in L.A. from a convent. But she took one last desperate wild look at me, standing at the door. I saw the animal in her ey

Two poems by Kitty Boots

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To dance along the wrack line...

Three Easy Steps:the little genuine things in life/sauteed whole peppers/easy roof repair

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So, once, we were all like sitting around the kitchen table, and it was so kind of like an okay sort of day to begin with. We were all like a secret theater of strangers, a living children's secret circle, meeting right in…

Found Poem

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The waters rose / on the earth

Win Some, Lose Some

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Afterward, at the motel, I asked her why she liked sex so much, and she said she liked the taste.

Naked Launch

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I enjoy launching words into space. Please dangle a moment here while I prepare the next sentence. Ok. You can come in now. Take boiling for instance. And hawsers. The sound of words on a sheet of paper. The manifesto for a roll of sleep. Sleep is oblivious to…

Drunk and Disorderly

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Growing up in Mississippi meant growing up in a “dry” State which it was until 1966. Dry State meant selling alcoholic beverages, except for beer, is illegal. Period. By period I mean there was no distinction between selling whiskey and stuff to adults and…

Our Beautiful Sadly Revolving Broken Wheel of a Heart is Sleeping in a Ditch Somewhere

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The planet looks so peaceful from space doesn't it? Want a blue Gumball? Like a pancake batter with bluish dye mixed into Its big yellow bowl and carried out by a winking Victorian Butler. Like a bowling ball with just the right Weight for your…

Noir

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Upstairs, in a room where some years later, the occupant would be murdered by his lover, I sat in my skivvies in an armchair and wondered if I should call my wife.

Threads of a Dream

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I'm gonna go find a hole to dwell in deep in the mountains where the Indians used to live dig a cave into my subconscious learn to be less secretive

Your party invitation just arrived (guest poem by Carolyn Martin)

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"I’d rather move a word around a page than raise a glass or pass a plate or work a room immune to poetry."

Paper House

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Because if they’re wavering, it's about the coin, always about the coin.

Road Trip

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I threw my hand / at the gearshift/ the car glided off.

Horse With One Big Ass Smile Plastered All Over Its Purple Petaled Pucker Just for You

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Tired, so tired of it all, but oh we'll always go on, won't we, still carrying on about the love the love the love we shared, only again and again. Ooh the oozing life blood is slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly now going to shit I say, practically…

Rejection at the Gates of Heaven

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"Some Purgatory in order, innit?"

4:09 and American Music

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If you knew everything, you would not be able to sit on tropical balconies at 4:09 A.M., discovering a book and then the world for the first time If you were part of the spiritual set, and could astral travel far and wide, but neglected to open the door…

Take our marriage and replace it with blue cheese dressing,

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the brand we like best and buy whether it's on sale or not. Surely there is another blue cheese dressing that is sold, possibly in San Francisco and made in a Berkeley basement by hippies who scrape together all of their change twice a year and buy cheese from an ancient…

Face to Face

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The face had become a chilling death mask.

The Shaker

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A man and a woman argued over the size of the quake. They were sitting on the floor like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

My History With Bras

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"Maybe so, but you have seen those photos in the National Geographic, right? Do you really want to risk it?" she demands and I sigh in defeat. I wake up at midnight, hot from too many blankets and pull my bra off through the sleeves of my shirt. I th

Frozen Bird Pie

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I like how you completely disappeared inside a undetermined and yet planned point of pretty good view, like a rabbit with a gold chained pocket watch, like a stunned, frozen bird with a still burning bullet in its tinyfeathered brain. You could…

Early Decision

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Melinda said forget the kegger last night, what we’re about to do will help you figure out whether you want to apply here.