Most discussed stories

Thunderstorms in South Dakota

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it rained so hard it flooded our tent and our sleeping bags were floating

Castle and Bell

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The bells are ringing once again. They are three sets of bells, but I can tell them apart. It's cold up here, and I never thought I would end up in such a high fortress surrounded by the grey and dark and the moat and the flora and fauna foreign and slightly brutish.…

Prologue (excerpt from a novel)

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The clip-clopping of footsteps now echoes from the opposite end of the alleyway, and as you turn to face the figure who appears behind you, the figure wearing a fierce Noh-drama mask, you determine that this time you will enlist its aid in decoding this r

The Chords are Clean, the Growl is Real

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"Good, it's Link Wray again,"

Soon to Be a Minor Motion Picture (excerpt)

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Man, you never ceased to crack me up! If you thought you'd just been called a homo, you probably wouldn't want to try to disprove it by grabbing hold of a naked guy and wrestling him to the floor of a shower room.

Cleaning Man

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The Zone is a garden of skyscrapers. Every building is a model.

Fall Apart Stuff

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He is snoring inside the silo of his throat. The inside there shines golden but that’s not the truth. There is something caught below the gold.

Maze of Sound

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Beneath the crosshatch gazes of the satellites and above the maze of sound, seahorse clouds exhale a glaucoma haze before they are absorbed into surveillance footage

DIAPERS FOR HORSES: AN AUBADE TO A LOST COCKATIEL

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And besides, since winter is coming, the dying clammy ground cherry makes a good Pilgrim hat for the fieldmouse. We found one the day after you left, at moonset, in the garage, building a nest with toilet paper in the air filter of the car.

Renoir: Le Moulin de la Galette

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Crowded into the heart are impressions past These are not recognized in the available light of the present. So they sit in the dappled shade drinking, the clear glass partially filled with various and red liquid. Hat tilted back. Black top hat S

Courage Under Fire

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Once upon a time, my friend and I met a nanny pushing a baby carriage and reading an e-book. She wore a plaid dress, blue stockings and a white barrette. A set of wrinkles marred her tanned brow. Multitasking seemed too hard on her. Inside the carriage

Brot und Käse

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I hoped I did not look as panicked as I tried not to feel.

Flower

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Sitting on the surface of it, near the entrance to its sex, A tiny child sitting up, the flower enormous, The child sitting in the white light That is almost granular.

What It Took To Be God

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They borrowed birds from the trees And forced me to sing along with them You could say they made my heart burn But we all know some of that was fake It was a direct route From sleep walking To sleep shopping To this I guess I lived a

Venison

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It is hunting season in Jersey today. They say “There are too many deer in Jersey today.”

20,000 Years of The Apartment For The Dead

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He saw places that he hadn't thought existed. He found his analog from 17,000 years ago praying inside of a white pyramid in Kathmandu, and saw how the fireballs being catapulted through the air outside were stopped in midair by a beam coming from the top

Cake

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There I saw a man Lowering his head Close to the plate And just wolfing down His cake And that was all he ate It was like Solace He was enjoying it So much

the cold the day left

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in our teens as tough as the cold/we wore denim and flannel with our boots/kicking at whichever wind blew . . .

If You Want To Work At Club Arseni

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I hev my girls shave.

FALLING MAN

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Steve Kramer was a brilliant young artist on the scene in New York in the 70s when I was starting out as a writer. He built little electronic dioramas displaying stuffed rats in various bizarre settings. Flip the switch and they would get fried in a little rat-sized…

In Distress

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When a multinational big box furniture store opened just off the expressway outside the city selling all the same products at greatly reduced prices, they contemplated the possibility of closing their store.

REM-Embering my LED

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Someone desperately dials a number. Iris, draped tight.

On the Rocks

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On the Rocks What matters these, to all, below the crest… If privilege of mind-blankness is the bay's? Remembrance breeds no fathoms of its rest- As plumb the circuit lulled, at each rephrase Of capture,…

Seven Things I Learned About David Letterman from Jason Zinoman's "Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night."

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Never touch David Letterman's neck!

Bus

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You can’t take a chandelier on an emergency dash across a nuclear desert.

Mind The Gap

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Alone,we are ageless togetherin the heart of our precious now.A relentless wedge of image and vanity, gossip and innuendo, acceptable and most certainly not, dashes our agelessness intoan insurmountable chasm of years.That diabolically…

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

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That was when we discovered we could make one shadow jump right through another and come out whole on the other side. Our shadows were indestructible. It was one of those moments of discovery maybe only gallons of pink Chablis could bring on. Or dope.

I-35W

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my world cracked

A Child is Born

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I came out of the Quick Stop and found her in the back seat of my ten-year-old Camry. I don’t know who she is, or why she chose my car. I do know she’s having a baby any minute now.

Rowdy

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Flash’s hackles stood brushlike but he kept his head bowed just enough beneath the bigger dog’s stare to delay the inevitable fight. Flash, Mal thought approvingly, would pick the time and place.