Most discussed stories

Incantation beyond Relief

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Double, double oil and trouble; 
 Spill and burn and caldron bubble. Back and forth make strong the stride. Even now pace the pride. Stepping stones that dot the slough make way for the clean up crew. I promise safe crossing. Straight…

Old Eyes

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I passed the old man from upstairs now and then, usually on Saturdays.

Off We Go Then

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Wish more than ever there was a more perfect way to mean everything I say. If I could I'd certainly walk all my words right up to your face now and give them over, hand to hand so to speak. That's the point at which I'd very much…

Freeze! It's the Library Police!

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A Texas man was recently arrested for failing to return a GED study guide to his local public library. He'd kept it out for three years. This is the kind of news story that brings joy to a librarian's heart.The library where I work just installed a…

Classic

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"I love you.”“Night.”Back at the screen door she answers “What?” I stand under her nose and say “Box is out of juice.” Inside she sits me on the black and white polka-dotted sofa we make love around here and there.…

The Sound of Human Lives

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The room smelled of an old rank basement. Boys and girls of all ages crowded the stage. The room was dark with only a few lights that hung from above keeping the crowd dark and silhouetting Chris on drums.

The Alternative Zodiac

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Instead of these gew-gaw ‘signs’ you waffle about, I will give you reality

It Always Comes So Close & Then Disappears

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It's all down to you. To every new morning's baby crying. Down to your blank notebook, all sides opening at once, hands like an ocean of birds.You standing there looking back at me from behind your chosen wall of love's newly made flesh. Your smile like blood…

Cryptsville USA

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pornographic bookmarks

Greet Death

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where are you now?

SPIN

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Rose lifted her 55-year-old legs until they were perpendicular to the bed and admired how girlish they looked. It gave her the sexy legs of a 20-year old, if the morning light was right and she squinted a bit.

Johnny Bruzzone: Pool Hustler

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I was a coward and didn’t want to get killed like Heimley. Heimley was a nut at high school. I saw him myself one night put his hand right through the windshield of this car he was working on, along with a monkey wrench. Sure, he was drunk, but th

The Wind Is Going To Take You

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Before the railroad tracks are blown off by the wind, the wall tiles morph to trace 34th Streetwhile a silver balloon emerges from the end of the tunnel. A child’s hand reaches out for the gleam and she, the woman in a black-dress with a mandarin collar,

The Other Side

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That was the first time I went over the wall. No bird opened its mouth to chirp. No wind blew. I staggered a little on the stony edge. And dropped down. I changed in a cafe. Shaved. Emerged as that rare thing: a new man. My clothes were old, saved for

Repetitions

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The couple sit at an outside table at McDonalds.

Juan Looking Good

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Juan’s tío, Richard, who works for the city and is the kind of Mexican who thinks he isn’t, took care of the lawyer. Juan checks himself in the mirror, didn’t know how good dressing fancy would feel.

Doctor Eyepatch

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That contraption he’d invited her to pedal, somebody oughta market one of those. The closer you got the harder it got, and her feet kept slipping off the pedals. It was maddening.

dovespeak

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If, for just a crystal moment, you will submit to being a dove...

Love Verse

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A gentle man, and a fierce woman, charmed one another in a shaded gazebo.

Lizard Back

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The lizard is like wearing wings on my back, makes me fly like a dragon in my dreams, which I have all day long, while looking at you, talking to you, right now, having dreams in some part of my head. I'd like to stick out my tongue and lick the part of m

The Show Must Go On

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I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation

Her Stars

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She wondered why people would spend hard-earned money on a television when they could look up at the sky for free and trace the images that had inspired poets.

Jacob Ellis in Journals

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i once knew a place where lost souls gathered. there were various itinerants and the ill-intentioned, the malevolent and hard-hearted. but there were also many good ones and that was a type of charm upon the area. good souls can be lost also, and this is what some…

Avoid Anything With an Ism

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Communism Capitalism Gism or Gysm, either way Avoid anything with an Ism Catholicism Botulism Socialism Skepticism If its got an Ism in it Avoid it, okay? (Advice for our newborn daughter) Avoidalism is okay Though So you c

Speak Softly, Tricky Man

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Snow fell against the windows casting shadows that danced like fireflies or flame—he couldn’t make out which for sure. He’d tumbled and bounced from balcony to balcony, the snow calming with the winds and gently falling, now.

Teddy

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I'd had way too many drinks. My legs were quivering. Everyone had gathered there in the kitchen, my sleek and attractive ex-wife the center of attention, all the men fucking drooling over her. Seems she was a yoga queen now, a vegan princess, a dancer somewhere. She…

Roots

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My grandmother didn't like fireworks much. She said they reminded her of the raids during the war, when everybody stayed in the tube tunnels at night, going in buckets and curling up on the tracks.

PAPA'S TEARS

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Darkness was fast approaching. I stuck out my tongue at Naya, and she reached out as if to grab…

Four More Haikus

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Death is like a warmcup of hot cocoa, steamingup into nothing. The sun rise will bringprison bars of light through thebedroom blinds again. Sorry about thefirst three hours of your deathI thought you were drunk. Across the park thestrange dog looks…

My Fuji Red Banannanana

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She had some fascinatingif incongruoustwins of swing hips.Her eyes made me thinkof opium densof fast women without a twitch,the sweet despair of gentlemen loserswith their 19th centuryhandbooks of moralityand witchcraft. But she only wanted mefor my Fuji Red…