Most read stories

Things I Will Miss Once the Apocalypse Is Done

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The scent of fresh cut grass./ The idiot sense of accomplishment/ mowing the lawn can bring.

Sidereal

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"...they ran shirtless like pagans under southern stars."

Letter to the Editor

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Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.

An Open Letter to my Fictionaut Family

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Dear Fictionaut Family,Some of you may recognize my name and remember reading my work, some of you may have joined more recently and be wondering what the hell I'm doing addressing you directly. I began writing on Fictionaut in 2010, during four years as I was fragmenting…

Waylaid (1999)

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In that mix of sports and religion, TV was what there was of virtue. I thought bars were nicer.

Fear

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Vito sat alone on a bench, hunched over, staring at his running shoes. He wasn't having fun. The club wasn't nearly as crowded as usual. There were no outlandishly-dressed or made-up people present. Most in attendance were huddled directly before the band

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…

Existential

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To envy faith, to envy love --// is there a fate more hateful? Choices/ scatter like stars. Too many.

Black Widow

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Hair as black as a Raven’s wing. Dark eyes. You wore a black dress, too, my favorite color.

The Bike Messenger on Lexington Avenue

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The Bike Messenger on Lexington Avenue Comes to rest taking a moment in the falling rain slowly massaging the veins at the top of his bald head Cracking his neck while the yellow cabs start honking behind him Unwilling to mov

fire and ice

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“Who says?” she purred in reply “They all do” he countered smiling , chewing on an ice cube “All of them, huh?” She leaned forward, raising a wicked left eyebrow and whispered, “And just who are they, anyway?”

Poems Are Scary Things

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They will take you, naked, and put their tongues and fingers into intimate, erogenous openings

I Was A Republican (For only one day, and it was a long, long, time ago.)

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There was gonna be a rumble in our schoolyard. An outright brawl. It was gonna be just like Blackboard Jungle. Only real. Not some movie at the Duwamish Drive-In. Every boy in my school, it seemed like, was lined up outside except me. All the third and fourth graders…

Kepler On The Bus

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On the bus I sat like an ounce.

Please Come to Boston? (Memoir)

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I've been invited to speak at Emerson College in Boston—it will be the summer of 2012, and I'll be speaking on running an online literary magazine; in this case, my own, Anderbo.com.

The Solution to All My Problems

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IN BOX 12 OF DD FORM 214, the Department of Defense requires a narrative reason for every military discharge. Mine reads: Continued involvement of a discreditable nature with civilian and military authorities.

Gods Sense of Humor (April Fools Challenge)

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I wonder, God. Do you sit around and play with the universe like it was your Wii? Or your Farmville? Or maybe your little iphone app? I mean, really. Did it ever occur to you that the little men, women and children on your screen actually bleed? Do you think…

When the Songbirds Went Silent in Cheerytown

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What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?

Moles & Scraps

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A starved hunchbacked figure covered in blanket gently steers a one eyed dog along with him. A four legged shadow serving as his longtime companion against the all-consuming vacuum of the universe. A friend for all times.A thin scar runs from his cheekbone to…

Brick Walls

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A flash in seven chapters.

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

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"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)

Circling '84

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Other things are on my mind when the Tupperware lady says, "First, let's move your couch over by the door and the table here."

On The Sly

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She was a sucker punch.

Eat, Pray, Network

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The image was startlingly unfamiliar. Looking at it, no one would guess it had been their last attempt, their last failure. No one would believe that they had never really been that way, or that the life they shared was built on mind games, manipulation a

Songlines

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When the planes crashed,when the levees broke,when the ground shook,there was a song I dreamed of,humming subsonic,a chorus of voices and prayersuncorked like the little brown jugthat holds all the love and memories.In the outback, Aborigines believewe create the world by…

Catastrophic, and Not Above Bad Puns

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I laid in the road, broken and alone, until I had no choice but to pull myself together and get out.

Sack of Meat

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The Nurse left work at five o’clock, walking down Dekalb Avenue toward Flatbush. He didn’t frequent the bar closest to the hospital, although he guessed other nurses and doctors from Brooklyn Hospital did. But he liked to pretend that he cared about h

Pollock's Last Snowflake?

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The question posed a voluptuous riddle. Were these frenzied silhouettes gestures of Jackson Pollock’s dribble?

Tiny Dancer

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This latest married man who lives at a great distance has leeched her energy in that very particular way such men do. Next to him, I am as interesting as long division.

Not Tired

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Three hours isn't that long.