Most read stories

Anchored Leaves

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i.More and more, for Megan LeMaster, each beginning was its own end. She couldn't bear to buy flowers or dresses that seemed too beautiful. Friendships formed, endured, gave out in a handshake. Each deed in life had an immediate, inescapable…

The Silence of Harold

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It's been sixteen days since I spoke with another soul. I don't mind much, but I know enough about people to know most would think I'm mighty odd. Muriel, for example. She'd be pissed as all get out. …

'The Good Life' Not by Bud Smith

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I'm trying to read a Poetry in Motion poem on there wall of a crowded electric train

Tribal Elder

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"Look at this," she says while thumbing through the guide book, "look at what we can do on Jooga Booga island. Says here, 'Parasailing over the sapphire blue sea, one soars hundred of feet above water-skiers, boaters, and snorkelers, and the picture is b

Papa's Parrot

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He wasn’t there for the beginning or the end. In the beginning, he was still a wild thing. Nothing more than a voice in the chorus of the Dark Continent, back when it was a thing of terrible beauty and attracted people like the old man; people who breathe

The Messenger

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Sophie didn't stop for lunch when she worked. She showed up first in the morning and worked through until the last package was delivered. She pedaled from building to building and walked quickly, at just shy…

Rude Awakening

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Vito suddenly found himself wide awake. He was unable to recall having fallen asleep or dreaming or awakening. It seemed he'd just entered bed, yet a glance at the windows told him it was already the middle of the night.

GRACE

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The sand felt warm, the way it usually was on Saturday afternoons in Seaside Heights; face down on the beach under a hot July sun that burned my back and shoulders

Wild Dreams of Reality, 10

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I spent the whole day at Oliveira's, writing furiously in my notebooks. The words came pouring out. Just before seven, Darrell picked me up. I grew anxious driving down to Parker's studio because it was in a bad area on the border between Oakland

Truth at a Bonsai Booth

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I envisioned bound feet of ancient Asian women who wore embroidered slippers that hid grotesque disfigurements.

RETIREMENT

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Men have a way of doing that, Lord, why? I always thought retirement means you get to sleep longer. Nope He must arise early, make breakfast, after 40 years of eating mine. Next, he insists on coming with me to the market. When I try to…

Mad Love

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No fear of that, / he assured her,

Light Shot Water

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Where I grew up, you did not venture casually into ocean waters.

The Devil in Converse

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In se'enties style serenading strut A passin all the pretty birds in kin', The feathered Stetson ‘clipsin crimson suit, A whistlin Dixie blues ‘cross county-lines.

Damn Headache

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Less than 5 seconds...

I Scream

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she peeled back the white wrapper from around her ice cream sandwich slowly, methodically

Martyr

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The waitress says, “That’s a memory,” as the smoke dances around her head.

Fragment

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see the man

Albert's Mother

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The stern tone of the chairwoman made him miss his mother, the snap of her accusations, the sting of her belt on the backs of his legs.

My Wife, My Love

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When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.

Elevator Neighbors (from The New Yorker)

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“Do you think she paints?” “Her face, a little, But don’t you find her kind of bony?”

What Remains II

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Duh. It’s all the same sky. Instead I nod, and don’t say anything.

Hat, Mouse, Tortoise, Zen

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I try to help my pet-mouse by dangling cheese from a piece of string in front of him. Or by making meow sounds. Sometimes, my pet-mouse wins, sometimes the hamster with the great body.

A Boy Named Suicide

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Came to admire Kiyoko Matsumoto. Japanese. Aged 19. Lesbian. 1933. Jumped into a volcano.

April Haiku

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A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

Walking To Gibraltar, Epigram & Chapter 1: So It Was Cancer

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So it was cancer. And so he was screwed, royally screwed. He was screwed all the more because he knew how screwed he was. He had to carry the shame of knowing, as much as he wanted to deny it, that this had been his first thought when he found out about h

Something Jazzy

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. . . clinging to life in a shroud of winter air. It veered up five flights to a sweltering summer night on the roof . . .

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

Crossed Out.

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Follow me around a bit. Let me walk you through the rooms, structures, and clouds of my being that reveal junk drawers of "collectibles."

1985...What I wanted

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with cool confidence and believable body language