Most read stories

Trees Today

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are my only real friends. They don't seem to mind my shuffling down the dirty sidewalks without acknowledging their mere scraggly presences like friendly tombstones. They are growing their hair out again. I've noticed that much. We've got a…

The Whippy Guy

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He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

soft soap

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you were very very small, you were everso small, you were like – the tiniest creature, hopping about on one leg

1975: What I Wanted

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I wanted my sister to not be in that box. I wanted my parents to laugh again. I wanted my friends to actually be my friends and not call me hurtful names behind my back. I wanted my awful cousin to have never come into my room in the middle of the night. I…

Walking The World Alone

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Yeah I walk itWithout a companionOr friendI walk the world aloneIt seems right to meI don't like the moviesMost television showsOr most popular musicI walk the world aloneUnable to buildAn emotional attachmentWith anyoneI walk the world aloneWith beer as My…

A Chaos Theory

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—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

The Haunting

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the ugliness will not be denied

Weary

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At this time of night, the fluorescence makes his eyes bleed. The muscles in his legs are tight; walking's more of a necessity than anything else. Alexander pushes the shopping cart down the endless gray tile floors of the Grand Union on 35.

Deep June Pool

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I may be the shadow that I am, but I only ever loved you.

Bonne Fire

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And the voodoo pins pinged as, folding and imploding, she was reduced to a petro-chemical puddle.

Rear View

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The man of a thousand faces was defunct.

Let This Be the Beginning for I Have Sin to Spread

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A crash, a loud tear screams through the house. A coffee table continues its dutiful life as a bitch.

Curb Appeal

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He kept the lawn mowed at the perfect height. He mowed it twice a week to one inch. Some weeks he mowed it a third time for good measure.

Colonoscopy Serenade

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Retired cantor Janice Woltag Cohen just turned 50. We Boomers all know what that means. It's Colonoscopy Time!Colonoscopy! That fabulous 50th birthday present you give to yourself. Yes, it's yucky. But it's absolutely necessary. (It could save your life.)As kids…

Myra's Lesson

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There’s no training course available for kids in love. You can watch your parents, you can watch other kids, but for the most part it’s all trial and error, and I'm still pretty shaky at almost all of it.

Brown and Blue

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She was in love with a boy whose eyes were so brown that she sat stopped in the restaurant at the anniversary dinner with the spoon in her slow chocolate fondant. Out of the corner of her eye, around the back of her head, under the table knees knocking

Drought

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Where we live, at the edge of the foothills at the east edge of town, fire is always a worry during the summer, and this has been an exceptionally dry year.

Sunday Cookout

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She thrust her proboscis through seven layers of dermis and began to suck, filling her belly with his Welbutrin and Xanax infused blood.

Fruits of Passion

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Lifting a pear wedge to my lips, I hesitate and dip it into my bourbon instead. I notice a tiny sphere of liquid, suspended, glistening with the flame of the candle. The sweet, subtle scent tantalizes my senses. Careless, sticky fingers bring movement.…

Harry, A Slow Learning Curve

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He’d been wishing for months that he’d bought a retro clothing store. He would have called it HARRY’S HOARY HOSERRY. He would have met a better class of women.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 5

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and we got the apartment, which was on a street that backed up on an alley situated, as it turned out, right across the alley from the very first Hari Krishna house, where they would wake up at four every morning and begin their maddening chanting: Hari K

Ladies' Day At Sam's Place

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I'm warming my stool at the far end of the bar as usual, nursing my fourth draft on a balmy Wednesday afternoon when I lock eyes with this lady who's bashing her head through the front door. You've heard the expression, “50-yard fox,” right? —Looks…

Graeme King and the Creature

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Graeme King was disturbed. He sat at his desk feeling his bloodshot eyes rolling backwards, impatient, leaden in their sockets. Could he believe what he had just seen? Surely not. Surely the late nights spent absorbing the relentless pulse of his computer screen…

Hermano Sandwich

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His mouth smiled but his icy eyes did not. "You like it?," he asked with a thin deflated voice. "Old family recipe. Enjoy."

77 Words About Last Night

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Blacked-out out on junk, I bet money on a sport I hated just last year.

What She Thought It Was

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She refuses to let her eyes cry. Her eyes played tricks on her and showed her one thing was really another. They don't deserve to cry.

Welcome to the Dark Walls

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“No one ever notices everything: but sometimes it happens, when no one is noticing everything, everyone misses the same thing in the same moment . . ."

Pumpkin Patch

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Artie invited me to go with him to pick out a Halloween Pumpkin for the house. I had recently moved into a communal living situation and we were still getting to know each other. Artie was the kind of person who made a special occasion out of ordinary life. Why…

What Gorillas 'Talk' About When Gorillas 'Talk' About Love

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Eons later, Bobo evolves into Shakespeare. Bonus feature: wings.

A Journey of Seven Thousand Miles

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The taste of / what is denied us is always sweet