Most read stories

The Sticky Platypus of Love, the Novelists' Battle for Sedative Peace

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Let there fly the sticky platypus of love, resplendent beak of the sleek.

Handy in a Denny's Parking Lot

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A compliment is candy to the heartbroken, oxygen to a suffocating flame. The best hunter picks his prey carefully, selecting his line like an archer pulling an arrow from a quiver, quickly and efficiently, then flick! the line cuts through the air and…

Lost In Space

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He was jolted awake from his light slumber by his pod crash landing. Landing? That means he found a planet. He opened the pod and got out to stretch his legs. He looked around. "Wow, and I thought Aleria was advanced. This is amazing."

Klondike

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"How could anyone say that I was wrong, that I was crazy?" These thoughts scraped across her mind and tore open the reasons she had knitted herself into over the years.

Cats

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My wife and I are cat people. Indeed, that's how we met. We met at a wake.

The Same

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The bus is late; the papers disappear. The china breaks, and the suit does not fit.

THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES

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The blues were born on the ghost train that rolled through the Delta and gave Memphis breath back in 1902. It's low moaning sound brought young black men running, dogs hot in pursuit, toward glory that danced in a moonlight…

Me and the Fleeting Glimpse

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I worry about my garden. I know there are larger concerns lurking in the stale shadows than my limp little flowers, things more pressing to the meeting of minds than thick lush green leaves might bring, but this is my own greenish way of …

Wild Dreams of Reality, 7

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7 We sat in Darrell's truck in the deserted silent world of the down-trodden industrial area of West Berkeley, where no one in his right mind went at five in the morning. "Put the gun away, Darrell," I said. "I mean it." "I can't help but keep

Of Soulful Cheese and Melted Needs

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Two fine-young-things scan the menu board of In-N-Out Burger off Interstate 101. Dressed like twins -- hoop earrings, tank-tops and mini-skirts, ballet pumps — you could hardly tell them apart, except for their Cleopatra and Marilyn Manson hairstyles. As they…

Diary of a Marriage (2)

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I don’t know what to make of this new territory we have stumbled into neither by accident, it seems, or design. Is there a map to be found?

Reiki Master

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55 words, slightly naughty

ABSALOM

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He was still on the ground...

Automatic Writing: A Cure for Writer's Block?

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Knocked off around noon, drank some retsina, checked Olympics results. Can’t find Medea’s motivation. Why would she kill her kids?

Ancestry.com

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Ancestry.com The Liverpool census in 1851 lists him:Thirteen years old, Irish. Occupation: beggar. Only that. I will do more for him.I will see him in torn jacket and too-short pants singing all day of the fields, the cliffs,…

Nourish

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The mouth on my breasts is hungry, searching, needing...

The Distance of Advice

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She has a mercenary way of doing business and she's pretty shrewd. I make her stand outside to smoke her cigarette. I stay inside watching her stance as she violently tugs at the barrel, tearing every ounce of smoke out of it, then stamping it out as I wo

Lines Written in a Honda Civic

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Raymond Carver used to write poetry in his car. / Tonight, I tried it too. / I have a car like Raymond Carver / but cannot write poetry like Raymond Carver. / The car isn’t enough.

A Way of Life

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Nothing more savory than gossip relayed in confidential tones.

The Winner

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i never much liked Elvis never did then never do now he was no Kris Kristofferson

Coffee

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He picked up a pack of cigarettes and shook it. He flipped the lid to confirm there were none left.

Bed Bugs are Jumpin' in Thunder Bay

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The little Hannibal Lectors had run like bandits away from the flames and had latched on to their equipment and gear. They screamed as the bugs crawled all over them. When they got back to the station they had to quarantine all their stuff so the bugs w

11 Bang-Bang

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The smell of candy and burn... /A patriotic prose poem for the fourth of July.

Permission to Go

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Now that I no longer sleep to see you, propelled by this motion that is not magic

THE OPPOSITE OF A GROWTH SPURT

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I’m aware I will never be a woman the night you leave me for another city

Heavenly Blue Morning Glory

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‘Oh, and try these. ' She handed me a plastic baggy full of seeds that resembled watermelon seeds, only smaller. ‘If these don't work your problem runs deeper...'

The balloon of you

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and the mass exceeds the buoyancy/ and gravity pulls you back,

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

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Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…

Didn't I always let you have one of my cigarettes?

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I liked the taste in my mouth, mint and cigarettes and fresh and filthy.

The Fuddy-Duddy Writer Reflects on her Fan(s)

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The Fuddy-Duddy Writer does not do wit.