Most discussed stories

That's Unethical!

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My husband says you don’t have to tip the owner of an establishment, just employees. I never heard of that rule, and suspect it is another example of him just being cheap.

Hometown News: Newsprint Jesus (part 2)

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If Don’s story was one of faith carrying someone through his trials, the story of Randy Slafter is another. It was faith that brought him and his family to Johnstown 15 years ago. The wings of faith protected him from the dark angels of grief and tragedy

Book of Mountains

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Headsets screaming with suburban boredom

A Blow to the Possible

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Tombstones are only granite symbols of a man’s life, Gus thought as he changed lanes. Children, they were the ultimate epitaph.

My Shasta Daisy

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I lay on grass warmed by the sun Somehow the breeze finds Its way between my toes I gaze at your beauty Standing alone in between Blades of green grass Is Shasta My Daisy I watch you dance As the wind teases and blows I watch you stand tall …

The Prince of Beers

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“All I want,” he was heard to say, “is a date with a really good-looking woman before I go away.”

Whither Butter Sculpture?

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Would we have been satisfied with a humble butter sculpture of a cow in 1960? Puh-lease! Would Parisians of the Impressionist era swoon over a big-eyed child picture?

Outré Souls (WIP)

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When the lore of the land could no longer hold the minds of men, they turned their eyes to places where they expected to find no other gaze.

Morning Night (1)

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Sunday Night She wasn't hungry, hadn't eaten for days, wouldn't even touch the food I took time off my fuckin' schedule to bring her myself. I walked through puddles of dirt and dog shit, I did. By the time she opened the door after four knocks, I was drenched,…

Drink Up Darling

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Darling Valentine’s pale legs shone in the dark, a beacon for the car driving without headlights along a tree-lined row of brownstones.

From T.S. Eliot's Copybook

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Thanks for the invitation, although you don't make the Undergraduate Verse Society Ice Cream Social and Poetry Slam sound very appealing.

The Element of Ritual

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Nurse Smithers straightened Dr. Baumgartner’s feathered head dress. it had slipped down below the caduceus so carefully painted on his forehead by the medical ritual staff.

Morning Night (2,3,4)

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Monday MorningI wake slowly. My breath still escapes me. He's asleep on the sofa, legs hanging, hand hanging, lips hanging, a river of saliva somewhere. He tries to be the one that's okay when I'm not, but really he's just as bloody as I am. I wait til he starts to…

The Avenues Of Occupation And Other Short Stories

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A vanishing of something we never got to see. All we've been left with are impressions, imaginings

Smiles Etched Into Stone

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A section of the baseball field that curved inward was filled with clear water. Birds were dipping their feet and the tips of their wings in. The sun set them apart enhancing the ice-sharp oblivion in their eyes. I swore I heard them say "Marry me.

The way the sky was now

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I’d like to say we didn’t remember the Alamo, but one of ours had to piss. We ran into youknowwho and he was fighting Mexicans and it was so beautiful and there were fireworks, or else it was God’s wrath, or else it was the sky now.

Driving Over Front Lawns With You

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I remember we were just out riding around and drinking this one night (Andy, me, Shel, probably you and another girl) when I purposely drove up on someone’s big expensive front lawn, then back down into the street, and just kept driving without saying a

Heather.

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Gone Heather, with her hands in her hair, silent for help, over-involved now scared.

The Little Things

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Incredibly he began to picture in his mind a scene not related at all to his frenzied search but of a huge plate of apple pie a la mode with the vanilla ice cream melting in streams like cool lava down the side of the pie and off of the plate.

She's Butoh (ELECTRIC DELIRIUM 1.4)

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She overcomes herself on the day of the spectacle, clown paint, unmoving amid a rumble of trains and screens, video logs and snapshots, live blogs from phones wet with lotion. This is Tokyo. Facial masks. Bare flaking paint in streams. Stardust.

The Prison

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He sat uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair and his eyes glanced quickly from one face to the next. The room was small, contained only one window and felt as if it was encroaching on him. It was hard for him to discern what exactly was in the room unless he focused his…

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 18

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We all ran out of the house into the communal garden without fences. There stood Von Rotten with a smoking rifle in his hands, and our mascot Digger lying on his side, limp. We all looked at each other in disbelief.

The Poet Begs

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William Walsh Queen Anne's "Gentleman of the Horse," poet and friend of Alexander Pope thought Caelia proved cruel for not giving him the toy he begged. So he wrote in The Despairing Lover. William Walsh …

Badface Investigates – Scarification: (draft)

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I can barely feel the blade as it first goes in. I'm pleasantly surprised. But as she drags the knife across my skin the pain increases becoming more and more painful rising to a point of unbearable agony the further she cuts.

COLLEAGUES, ACQUAINTANCES SUSPECT MARK ZUCKERBERG IS A MASKED VIGILANTE

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COLLEAGUES, ACQUAINTANCES SUSPECT MARK ZUCKERBERG IS A MASKED VIGILANTE

Heroes

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no one told him there was a place where heroes died, but he should have known it was in love

Peg

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Peg searched around, his fingers caressing Jim’s leg through the fabric, and took Jim’s dimes and quarters. Peg paused, searched around still more, and took Jim’s nickels and pennies. Peg gave Jim’s balls a little squeeze.

Abstractions

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Sleeping at home gives an inkling's idea,of absent last abstractions. Muses surf unknown unknowns, through keyways of sidewalk approaches.And manifold techniques frame afoul light's fated But ultimate demise.When once of…

Red

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There's a boarded up Chevron a few blocks down the street from where I used to live. I still pass it every now and again as I'm going to and from jobs. When I lived in the area, which was about three years ago, there was this one red-headed female gas jockey that seemed to…

The Albatross

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Gigantically heaping past the dawn, White rider, swinging circles into light, Do you cross the spar-lengths of meridians, O albatross, conspirant of the thought The sea dreams of its relic mastery? Rainbowed reliquary of…