Most discussed stories

At the Christmas Carol Bar

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I’ll take my Christmas carols neat-

The Getting of Ignorance

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It was too late to be eponymous. I was happy enough to be an emulator. But even then, my ideas were nothing but re-runs of re-runs. Like a high-school production of Macbeth.

drinking buddies

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Tonight, Bukowski and I drink together.

No Regrets

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The ability to "see the ball" is a gift.

lent (valentine's day challenge )

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the names / she carried (within)

Chills On My Opposite Hip

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You gave me chills on my opposite hip whenever you touched me from behind, when we spooned under the rough woolen blanket in your basement. Whenever your essence touched my life like that. Just like when you said, “You came, that’s all.” That’s all? T

Blood and Rain

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There's no rain--there hasn't been rain in weeks--but the clouds are dark without the sun, and I can't see the stars.

The Bird Nests of Lascaux

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With their brightly-colored bits of found string woven into the walls of their nests to teach their baby birds what the worms of the future will look like. Somewhat like the cave paintings of Lascaux for early man in France, when hunti

Grand Fury

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At some point, Spiro thinks, everyone must look like a sniper.

Kidz Love Klezmer

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The clarinet and the accordion are brothers, I see. Big, fat men with curly, klezmer hair.

Tongues

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I feel his hand on my face, feel it brush past my lips, and I taste my sister's blood.

American Passage

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The moon, a cataract cloaked in its charcoal fog, slowly seeps among the trees; night's unguent.Its glance is constant and white,its arc known. I watch its brow of bone with constant wonder.The long, slow funeral of America is taking its time; its…

The winter I was going to meetings

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It’ll die in there and the stairwell’ll stink for weeks, Greg says in the car. We’re quiet, considering that.

The Beach

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I often thought about touching those slippery flames between my thumb and index finger.

When I'm Sixty-Four (Semantic Satiation)

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Every day is exactly the same.

Telling Maybelline Jones

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Maybelline Jones is my sister, my friend, and I try to tell her the right way to be.

Day's Heat and Mistaken Winters

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Elizabeth stood outside my door one afternoon. I greeted her from across the studio, put on some water to boil and walked to the door. I took her hand, held it to my cheek, and led her to my dining room table.

Quitting Smack

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I figured he knew what he was doing–he was the crazy one, after all, not me–so we took turns snorting lines of equal volume.

Aristeia

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And no one died achieving aristeia/ in this battle. We have come/ at least some little distance.

Deep June Pool

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I may be the shadow that I am, but I only ever loved you.

world's a mess

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until i french kiss every atmosphere my mouth ready to explode like roman candles sparking my fingers sparking off the tips of my sparking fingers

Man On A Balcony In His Bathrobe

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Watering his pansies in their pots with his ridiculous watering can. Sticking his finger in the soil to test the dampness. Obviously nothing on beneath the silk robe. It’s almost fallen loose a dozen times Balding. Maybe in his late forties. S

The Warden

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But others maintained that Billy Navins was a mad dog that needed to be put down and were just as glad that Lester was around to do it. " Call it a mercy killing," someone said. " Put the poor bastard out of his misery, didn't he ?"

Noir vs. Noir

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You're sitting in a darkened theatre with Gothic ceilings and one exit watching the latest Alan Ladd film with William Bendix and Veronica Lake.

Macarena Lithuania

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At dinner in Marrakech, Namid danced on the table, waving a white napkin, propelled by jetlag and poor judgment.

Beckett not Joyce

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Gorgonzola. It's what she was to bring this time. Plumtree's potted meat. What it was last time.

The Great Pandemic Poem 2020

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First you had to have been there Because the air cleared up When the world stopped driving And the plants bloomed Bigger and brighter than we had ever Ever dreamed The sky was just a brilliant, pure Blue Like when God was born Now fo

Rope & Bone '86

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His shirts he hangs on the back of the chair, one on top the other so they won't wrinkle.

The Open Perch (Valentine's Day Challenge)

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… in truth I am not waiting, but also flying in my soul to meet her, a journey that has taken me across the span of my own lifetime and the gulf of that same mysteriously mapped universe.

Where Shall We Meet?

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And she was thinking of him, right now, at this very moment, scurrying like mad, desperate and frantic like in those dreams where you’re late and trying to get somewhere but can’t, not wanting to blow this opportunity...