Most discussed stories

To The Little Mouse Who Started Feeling Slightly Nauseous

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I heard them praying to some god none of us had ever heard of. I'm glad I went to the funeral and still have the yellow rose that I did not throw into his grave. At some point you have to stop nibbling from the moldy cake.

I Dreamt I Was Vermeer

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I dreamt I was Vermeer For just a little while I took this photo of a criminal A mugshot really And claimed I had painted it From memories of a previous life He looked just like a Vermeer With the light coming in From the side of his fac

Shadow Play

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I was quite alone in this small room with the tarp and the dying fire.

D Evil in the D

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when the devil dies he divides enough evil for everybody

Strangeness

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The goose on the roof isn’t aware it is doing anything odd...

Don't You Think

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a war forever seems so sadly stupid, pretty petty on our perky part in the ongoing play, a terrible loosed thing to have to always keep holding up our hostage hands to-- at least when being compared to…

Bootsy Goes on a Bender

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Bootsy awoke with a hangover that only brain surgery could cure, a hangover that caused a seam to open in the known universe, leaving Bootsy on one side while all other matter sped away, away.

A Dream History of Outer Space

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Look. There's just you and me, that's all that's left. All the rest of them had already given up a long, long time ago. They dropped their precious, colorful dreams like rusted railroad lanterns, like abandoned pumpkins, and littered the Twitching…

Prayer

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Prayer

A Monologue About Skyscrapers

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Everyday the buildings seem to be getting taller and taller.

This Is Not Your Poetry

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Your begging hands are hacking me up again like garden claws that know not the difference between a delicate solar powered flower and a tightening choke of killing weeds.It's not like it's even mine to keep-- like a legal document I'd…

Mom at Night

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Mom stayed up all night again Tending to her papers Pushing them around Trying to make order of the debts, the dreams and the obligations She couldn't get the columns to add up, So she shuffled them around some more and Rearranged the piles …

For J.S. Bach’s Three-hundred-twenty-eighth Birthday

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To listen is to feel embodied reason// sing and dance with consummate grace

Pins

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The wind is wet today I can't tell you where sky meets sea only that it matters I can't explain why. I've triedCan't see the horizonbut I know that we have drawn itfingers tracing far pastthe edge of blind infinitywhere we sang stars to sleepand pinned our…

Air Conditioning Bill

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The last night, I shivered in bed until three a.m., the blankets wouldn’t work, or the socks, or my tears, but I reassured my heart that my next love would be warmer. 
He was. 
And our air conditioning bill was so high we could’t afford it.

The Lateness of the Night Lies Dreaming

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Your finger quivers as it writes Upon me words in water, Words I cannot read nor drink But feel them as you drink Them with your tongue

Graven Images

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Mother hated a crucifix. Graven, she said. Evidence that Catholics weren't saved, just stuck in ceremony. Jesus had risen and anyone who had to pray in Latin, count beads or confess to robed men who took orders from a monarch didn't know…

INGOB

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They think Van Gogh heard music when he looked at his starry nights. Working at a Bingo parlor, you get to believing in a one-in-a-million shot just as much as you doubt the rarity of a sure thing. I only worked part time at the bingo parlor because I ne

77 Words Sparked by Insomnia

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Mice dreams are a reality ...

Feb 5

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He peels the garlic while I stir the lentils; he chops the cilantro while I peel kale leaf from stem. Also, the rings. Also, no one is going anywhere.

Spiral

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When collapse is a wave that curls the floor under itself I give myself to it

Ripping Good Poetry Lures Boys Who Curse With Verse

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Pringy practices an aesthetic variant of the “muscular Christianity” that is a tradition at Groton; a program of Sunday poetry classes for boys who violate the school’s ban on swearing.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 25

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It was 6 a.m. when the phone next to the bed awakened Francesco.

Hoss Men (divided)

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Agents I have little idea. Woiwode partly supported his family in the 60s by publishing in The NYer (his friends were De Niro and Barthelme) so perhaps there was little trouble in his finding one. E.W. met his at a bar. He publishes in Paris and Texas.

New Moon

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circa the early 90s, Buzz Aldrin and my father had been invited to a dinner at someone's house on Bainbridge Island and gotten lost.

Assiduity Twenty Four

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The grand piano, . . .

One Sick, Two Sick, Red Sick, Blue Sick

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I found a diseased fish / wedged between some boulders near the pier

An Orange

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I offer you an orangeYou say you'd prefer an appleI offer you an orangeYou say, noI want an appleYou say you had a bad experienceWith eating an orangeHmm, I sayYes, but what does it matter?You say you are not eating the orangeUnder no circumstances will you everEat an…

Butterflies and Fresh Paint

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For PearlSo radiantly a threat to themare you, so radiantly a threatyou present, my dear, but between usthere is still that unspoken pact; justone more song, please. So radiantlyyou fill their cups with the beauty ofleaves and grapes. So radiantly yoursmall reassuring smile…

Acknowledgements

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I sit in a café and watch the near palms of summer swaying against the far ridge of hills and young girls walking along in their sleeveless summer dresses. Their shoulders speaking their long history of sex and future children,