Most discussed stories

There's Life Underground

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I'm not dreaming anymore.

The Pre-Game Show With Al and Chris

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Al:In the contest for the Worst Century Ever, the Twenty-first could be a real contender. Chris:The Twentieth looks unbeatable, sure, what with the War to End All Wars, the Great Depression, Hitler, Spain, the Second World War…Al:…Stalin, and Enola Gay. The genocides alone…

Collapsible Horizon

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Mama sleeps in bed with us. The blue of her ghost sleeps underneath me. I love her more than anything. What does she think when we are naked, when we yell, or mimic, imbibe, curse, cry, shake, make love, roll over on her, want to die?

Father's Day

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I nudged my old man's boot from the coffee table and picked up beer cans. The boots were chewed-up and he still wore the shirt with his name, but he'd retired. There were little burn holes in it from welding and smoking. I emptied the mound of Lucky Strikes. He talked in…

Tiny Breaths

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Fire and ice undo me. I am born again, born again through the burning ice and biting flame. Listlessly floating cinder-like on lost cusps of wind that multiply with every with every single with every single breath. Spitfire grail and…

Lvoe

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like a hundred cracks of thunder / or my brain seizing up, going all floppy on me ...

The Creative Use of Meal Time

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We’re more into the punishment that works its way in through the skin and coats the heart anonymously.

Were I Konstancja Gladkowska

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My playing would falter languidly, and transcend itself like a wishful Nocturne

Thunder at Midnight

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I’ve had it to here you see.

Hot Dog Hot Dog

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A man on the sidewalk dressed as a hot dog hits a triangle dinner bell with a clang and yells for everyone to come and eat at Hot Dog Hot Dog. We were feeling more like fish and chips or spicy pulled pork, but there's something about how…

Drinking the Wild Virgin

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I really think we ought to be drinking The Wild Virgin again I remember having a beer once And feeling like a minor god, yes Just like you did So, now, listen to me: if she snores all night That’s one thing But if she screws the lights out

Mr. Softee is Driving Me Crazy

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It is ten days before the 2024 election.So I am right now alternating between biting my cuticles and sipping a gin martini.I'm reading Virginia Woolf out in the backyard.The neighbor is having roof shingles replaced.Banging. Banging...BANGING!It is 3:34…

PORNOGRAPHY

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PORNOGRAPHY First He went across the floor to where she sat. One sleeve of her shirt dropped to show her shoulder, salted and brown. One hundred fish filled the wave. Now, he said. Now is now. Second The car wouldn't…

Noah's Ark, NYC

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Two by two they come walking down 7th Ave girl with girl boy and girl boy and boy two pigeons strolling side by side two robins two crows walking stiffly like two pieces of anthracite coal two spiders two dogs sniffing each oth

Lottery Ticket

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  Tony sat down in the hotel room with his back against the wall. He had a handsome face, with three-day stubble growing from it, his pupils very large as if frightened by something, or from deep thought. In his hand, was the winning lottery, Periodically he would get up…

The Distance of Advice

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She has a mercenary way of doing business and she's pretty shrewd. I make her stand outside to smoke her cigarette. I stay inside watching her stance as she violently tugs at the barrel, tearing every ounce of smoke out of it, then stamping it out as I wo

Aged Beef on the Senior Meat Market

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Burger King has rekindled Flame, its $4 broiled-meat-scented spray.

And so, like a kind of molting

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So for now, let the snow fall, but let it fall gently, each flake as a soft piano note

Green Dots

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"It just makes sense to be nice to everything that lives."--Aurora AksnesLike Aurora, my favorite color is moss green. Anything else is a lie told to throw you off the scent. You will abandon her. Just like you will abandon me. Green. We were walking…

On Living in New York City in 2009, After Watching a Documentary on New York City in the Late 1800s

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God's honest truth, I wake up every morning when my clock punches out its dulcet, insistent clangs, a setting called Ultra Zen Up & Out. I brush my teeth with a blue dollar store toothbrush and watch one of the five morning TV shows designed to let me know the weather…

From Below

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I can hear the echoes clearly. They are distinct and crisp, almost as though they're all on exact trajectories to me from their final bounce, without any interference. Each sound, while unintelligible, seems to fit perfectly and expectantly into my ears

WHEN YOUR HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THE HEART OF THE OCEAN IS NOT IN YOUR POCKET

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Her heart is the color of fuck. Not the color she'd imagined; the soft pink of parting lips, the fading hand print on steamed—up windows, like Leo and Kate in that fancy car the night it sank. His car was a dented jeep…

Four.

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Fold in the edges. Careful. Creases marked and thumbnail pressed. Don’t look up. Fold in the edges. Concentrate.

Sparky's Gambit

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Sparky took to me immediately. In some atavistic canine way he knew I was simpatico to a dog like him.

Who Set Off the Liberal Detectors?

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I sense that I may have won a few hearts and minds with my stirring peroration. "Can I get anybody a Republican Party beer koozie to take home?"

Out of Vegas

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Whatever it is, the night vibe feeds off that disadvantage, nibbles at the desperation of those who come here.

Edward Ogle the Ninth

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Vanilla bean trampoline

Lawnmower Season

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"this is the year I'm going to plant a yucca tree in the garden."

Morphine

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Until the ivy hides me in

Save the Spinning World

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or do we tickle each other's private stocks of fancy instead? I know which one I would choose, but so do you, and that's how the question's always changing places with the wrongheaded answer's velcro-lined vest, bullet to blasting…