Most discussed stories

Word Balloon

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Most times a vertical word balloon floats before him.

Want

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I want you closeI want to feel youinside me,softening me untilmy borders are blurredand I'm hardly breathing,my heart swellingso big itbrings me to my knees,I want to know thepain of losing youeach time youclose your eyes andgo to sleep anddream of someone else,I want to…

The Water

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The phenomena of this water formed the first definite link in that vast chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined to be at length encircled.

You Were At Your Best with Strings Attached

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You were like a delicate lace that barely mentions the wrist. But you were also at your best with strings attached. Let me say this. If innocence is supposed to be so overwhelming as to do nothing on purpose, not carried away by sensatio

July 16

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Last night as a duration spent hovering in electronic media-space.

The Shadow People

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Two summers later, the ritual began. Carol left her house at midnight, having served her husband and daughter a heavy dinner that left them caged in their sleep. She was like a thief working in reverse: she rose from bed with her husband’s first snore,

Full Stop! Punctuation Police!

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Picture a scene: Catholic School, circa 1987. In a well-ordered classroom full of future secretaries ...

His Laugh is My Yellow (or explaining skin color to a six-year-old boy)

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Max is the color of burnt caramelized sugar the sweet crust that decorates our bright enameled pots.

Him and his Father

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Snow was falling. People passed by the window and wore large coats. Inside, Alex stood in front of the window and watched.

After Watching Zardoz

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Infinite storage space for unreflected patterns.Pretty pictograms from the fields of time and motion.Uplifting monotones despatching Jupiters and Saturns.Remember? The second we crawled from out the ocean,vulgarians of the sunpoised against the tip of a cosmic…

Full Tilt Boogie

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Your tongue is enlarging... wait, it’s growing hair. No, wait, it’s planarian flatworms, an earthy taste oozing down your throat. A terrible itching spreads from your solar plexus, under your skin everywhere. You know if you scratch even once, you won

The Tree That Took Brooke’s Faith Away

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The thing was, though, she couldn’t shake the image of that dead dog she had found inside the black trash bag she thought could be first base, right before the twins said, Screw the game, let’s swing.

How to Fuck Kanye West (Up the Ass) by Donald Trump

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[marbles] [blither-blather] [blarg]

Thick Rib of the Lamentation Animal

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This violin of oneself, this rough strum of I, arc of wing over thick rib. This masturbatory chirping like the meat of God clenched in your teeth, an apostrophe giving aloneness possession over the inarticulate, a bridge between chords.

Ready to Surface in All Respects

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Our realtor is worried about selling our apartment. He believes it is a submarine. We cannot convince him otherwise. I agree that our apartment is a little small and more than a little cluttered. We have a lot of books. The sensation of standing or sitting in our…

Pops

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My father is the kind of man to shout at you / just because you took the wrong road / at least the road that he’s not used to...

Lewd in the Library!

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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue just came out, and all over America librarians are flipping through its pages and rolling their eyes. The swimsuit issue, which isn't actually about swimwear at all, but, is, instead, about young, beautifully shaped female…

Icehouse

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It was noon and cloudless when I pulled over next to the icehouse, wedged in the X formed by two dirt roads.

Dear Poetry Editor,

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I like to think of my poetry as fungus, sprouting out of the dank and fertile soil of my imagination.

Ascension

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He reveled in the chase, giddy when just out of arm’s reach. When to catch him, that was the question.

Not Writing

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I don't look like other poets. / People hardly believe it when I say / "I write poetry, sometimes. / During lonely evenings."

Colonoscopy Serenade

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Retired cantor Janice Woltag Cohen just turned 50. We Boomers all know what that means. It's Colonoscopy Time!Colonoscopy! That fabulous 50th birthday present you give to yourself. Yes, it's yucky. But it's absolutely necessary. (It could save your life.)As kids…

Пушкин и Baudelaire, via странников

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—but night does not reduce me to sleep / the dragging minutes keep awake / the dark that only opens its deep . . .

PUISSANCE du PISSANTS

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Not like a Palestinian mother clinging to her baby shot through the belly or the baby clinging to the last moments of life in the arms of his father who, when the life departed, held him up over his head

Chipping Granite

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I sat at the kitchen counter, aware of a heaviness, a numbness, in my flesh, my bones, my mind. My dancer's body -- short, trim and 108 pounds -- felt as huge and unmoving as the…

A Study in Plastics

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She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

ice becomes a new marvel

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at all altitudes and at all latitudes / glaciers in furious melt: / both Greenland and Antarctica headed both / to be ice-free isles adrift / and with shorter coastlines amidst higher seas.

Superheroes

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I change things without notice for himto make sure he's ready for the corporate world. It's no longer our goal to watch cartoonswe must now focus on breakfastthenaction figures. "But Daddy," he says. "I likecartoons." "I know it hurts," I say."But…

Bunking off

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He looked like a black paper doorway pasted onto a painting of summer.

Ben Clarone: Prologue Part 2

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This was not the bar that the artist usually frequented.