Most discussed stories

A Frog in a Well

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Ikkyu liked coming over especially at dinner. I'm a great cook and even though he no longer needed to eat himself, the idea of a sumptuous meal and a nice bottle of wine appealed to him. We'd commune about the poetry of karma flowers, seafood, and women, he in his robes and…

The Lady and the Boy

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The aftermath of a lady's adultery.

ALL THOSE YEARS

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Joseph and his little brother, Kevin, were there again. Kevin was too small to understand what had happened yet. He would usually just go off, running around the statues and playing with the wreaths; the last time they'd visited he climbed a tree and broke one of the…

Solar

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Trollo Martinez was wearing a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and an old LA Community College T-Shirt. He needed to find some water so he could down the 5milligram tab of Ritalin in the palm of his hand.

A headline for Amy Hempel

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I shall go with german rules of capitalization in titles today.

The Full Treatment

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She rolled onto her back and spread her hind legs. Her lewd poses were fine on a fat cat, but as I rubbed her belly I wondered if that’s what might have gotten her into trouble as a human. I tried to reassure myself that her indiscretions weren’t my fault

Empty Pockets

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We dance on rooftop, then I fall off.You're like, "oh shit."Pale blue lobster finds me. Says, "hello." Taps me with claw, "wake up." Looks around, concerned. Shakes me with two claws on collar.Scuttles away for a second.Comes back with warm, perfect, round glazed doughnut.…

Us Kids in Left Field

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Us kids in left field steal out bedroom windows after dark to pinch hit Lucky Strikes between first and second fingers, arc the glow of shop-lifted hot-boxed cigarettes over the chain link homerun fence sprawl on perfectly ridiculous grass passing a bottle…

Michael & The Reaper

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That sound. Bone against bone. Skin across skin. Blood fraying into the unknown dark. He loved that sound.

Shuffle

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Something is clearly wrong with them and we're supposed to socialize them.

Red Lady Octopus

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I hand one of them the octopus and run out of the room.

Moon

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Watch the moon hang with methough miles and miles apart.Over sea and rock and railwaysforever in my heart.

Me and Coleridge Take a Spin in the Phlegethon

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Like so many high school drugheads I warmed up to Coleridge because he was an dope fiend. If you want to get young men interested in poetry it helps if you lure them to the art through controlled substances.

Every Time a Bell Rings

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I could feel the old house skulking in the shadows. In the basement I used to play in the dark, shine a flashlight on the angular black widows creeping in the corners, feed them ants and silverfish and flies with the wings pulled off so the web wouldn’

Holding It In

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I really need to go to the bathroom.

Roy G. Biv

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Perhaps a blue person is more alive underneath than a red. Red is eye-catching and flashy, but blue is substantial, secretive. Of course, blood is red, and there’s nothing more substantial than blood, but we’re on blue at the moment, and the thought

Welcome Mat

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For you, airplane wings said 'life has not been kind here'. Kind, like what was missing was tea or as if we didn't clean our windows properly. There was that time when, stood in the kitchen Rupert saw the fire. Flames lapping at the gate of…

Last Visit to Mauritius Island

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So I threw away all my stuff, because I was tired of it, and because I decided I wanted to revive the Oral Tradition. I figured if it was good enough for our ancestors, it couldn't be all that bad, not that I’m really into history or cultural stagnancy o

ASH WEDNESDAY

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Everybody knew the McDonald’s at the Waterfront was selling theraflu stamp bags, and I guess I’d heard how bad it was for you—they’d had reports of dumbasses ODing on channel 2, 4, and 11—but it was a lot stronger than regular heroin and a lot cheaper...

The Circle of Life

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Maybe you could buy a Volunteer,” Carol suggested. Ma huffed. “You know we don't have the money for that. And besides I never liked the idea of Volunteers — taking advantage of the poor like that.”

The Insured

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Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac

Crane Man

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Inside my high-rise studio apartment there are only three locations where Crane Man can't see me. The bathroom is one—although he watches me go in and he watches me come out. Crane Man does a lot of watching. Sometimes it seems he spends more time looking…

the marriage of heaven and hell & their cat

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It is hard

On Clearance

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She clutched her fat rolls and tugged on a pant leg. "I'm so embarrassed! You caught me on a bad day!"

The Whippy Guy

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He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

Everyman's Armful

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She was, they said, everyman’s armful; Bedding down with her was most likely harmful.

Cleverbot conversation RSC00206460

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maybe if I bat my lashes just right, or look prim enough to fly, you just might touch me tonight, and the dream will pop and fizz and I will wake somewhere, your hands smoothing these lines of worry away.

Interruption

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As soon as he neared his neighborhood newsstand, handed over the exact change and had The New York Times in his hand, Irving switched from feeling he had no choices, to feeling he had a future.

Louise at Christmas

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My brother used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them ..

The Men on the Moon

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It was a gesture on their part, an act with meaning; they didn’t care about country or science; their love was their art, their art was their love.