Most discussed stories

Eidetic (from OPEN CITY Magazine Number 16)

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Who do you think are the true intellectuals? I'm a fan of both Gore Vidal and Harold Bloom although most people can't stand either of them. George Plimpton is interesting...

The Catcher in the Rye -What Happens Next-

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I bet if I went back, Old Stradlater would still be combing his gorgeous locks in front of the same goddam mirror.

Saguaro Poem

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I thought I would write a poemAbout a saguaro trying to please God The saguaro would spend a hundred yearsGrowing an arm and offering flowers in its fist —God barely notices. The saguaro flowers a crown for God.More arms. God then loses his patience…

The Pope of Rock and Roll

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Pope Leo XIII endorsed a cocaine-based drink and at the age of 90 sat in on a session with a castrato that is still available on CD.

Change of Heart

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They pumped him full of electricity and waited.

Affair

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No clouds No rain

Lunch With Harriet

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she felt something warm and wet on her ankle and it was producer #1's green tongue and he was still sitting down behind the table and it traveled slickly and caressed her calf with a sensuousness she wouldn't have thought something so ugly could possess

Myra's Middle Name

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Maybe our whole generation is going to hell, but I’m not getting any younger or better looking. Life’s too short for the missionary position.

The Ridgeline: Day 1

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The first burned slowly in the distance. I built a small fire to keep warm. Snow covered the area as far as the eye could see. The sun burned bright in the sky above and the mountains disappeared onto the horizon. My gear had some wear and tear from t

Women With Colds and the Men Who Love Them

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“This is when things pick up with the ‘stuffies,’” says Sergeant Jim Hampy of the Vice Squad. “They lie low during the summer, then come back when cold and flu season starts.”

Cat Haikus

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You have more names Than a Spanish grandee. Your lives I’m too envious to count.

WikiGreen (a semi-found poem)

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Green is the color of emeralds, jade, and growing grass. In the continuum of colors of visible light it is located between yellow and blue. Green is the color mostShades of green desireIn the Category: Shades of green Green politics meet…

Cache

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Could I cache your kisses?

A Handsome Boy Spends a Wednesday

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It distresses me that you will never lust after me / the way you did for that girl / who had her hands around your belt

For An Age That Needs No Patience

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Beyond the tattered flags of nature.Beyond all my love examines.Beyond the courtyard of Man's fever.Stands your mind of famines.More or less eclipsedby the darkness of my betters.I lay now down to ruinthe art of unsigned letters.To bypass Common Man'spremature…

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…

Dog of the Day

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At her words I smiled amidst my teary eyes. Nick’s fingers moved between my right hand fingers, while to my left I scratched at Rodger’s puppy fuzz on her neck and ears. She exhaled and lay down, placing her head in my lap.

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’