Most read stories

The New World

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And so we conquered.

The Space Between Words (Valentines Day)

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Looking for meaning in spaces between words.

When You Don't Believe

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I told you that I have homicidal urges that alternate with ones of the suicidal kind. You flicked an imaginary speck of dust from your fat, fleshy forefinger with your ultra-flexible, wimpy thumb.

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.

Birthday Boy

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The sound of it wasn't right in his head yet. When he said it aloud he didn't really believe it.

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

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The Fuddy-Duddy Writer does not do wit.

Duck Sauce

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In principle, Sergeant Brock Lumley resisted superstition, but if you were to stop him on any given day he was patrolling Baghdad streets with his rifle squad and ask him to open the front left ammo pouch on his flak vest, he’d get this look on his face..

The man-faced boy

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And so the man-faced boy grew alone, knowing little of kindness and love. As he grew, he explored the limits of his cold world; crawling in dusty nappies, toddling in hand-me-down rags, at last walking on worn sandals, haunting the edges of human life loo

ABSALOM

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He was still on the ground...

2 and 2

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I was a six year old with no bike. Only the males in my familyhad that privilege. So one morning I got up very early, before the older siblings awoke, crept out the back porch door where Iknew there would be two bikes in the yard just waiting for me and my…

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,…

Algae Freunden

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She had a strange name which I am ashamed/ To have forgotten, seven times, maybe nine,/ Her lips transgressors, wet with sourapple ...

SHE HAS HER REASONS

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It is a well-known fact that my wife sleeps around. There. I said it and now everyone knows that I too know about my wife. Let me just tell you this one thing; she has her reasons. You ask me how I know that she has her reasons, but who would know better than…

January 2, 2012

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You always complained that Christmas/ ruined your birthday/ sister.

Funeral

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After the funeral there was a luncheon in the church basement.

Simurgh

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Some say the simurgh is an enormous bird with four wings, teeth, and a human face, able to carry off an elephant in her talons.

VCR CIA

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When VCRs were invented in the 1970s, the first big user segment was people who wanted to watch porno films in the comfort of their own home. Troy and Lynn's upstairs neighbor, James, an enlisted man in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, had a vast porn…

I Don't Know What I might say

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But it all works out. I guess. Truth is something I'm sure I've never seen before, but the more time goes on, the Less I'm inclined to believe in it. Still I don't want To be one of those giving the finger to God And begging for a showdown with an…

Four Prospects from a Spanish Garden

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(For Dancer and Guitar) …

Someone With Keys

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Mower hits a rock and the blades scream.

Infinite Penis

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He finds a beach ball and recreates humanity upon it. Kicking it down the shore he wonders how the little people must feel about each other. To place them on such a tiny globe almost seems unfair.

Scar

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If he doesn't bite, I'm out of here.

THE ORCHID

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The orchid trembled on its long stem

Swimming with Whales

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The plan was this: We would take our first vacation. My husband and I would take our 2 ½-year-old son Ethan and 13-month-old son Jonas to Mystic, Connecticut, a 90 minute drive from our home outside of Boston. We would stay at the Hilton, which was right near the Aquarium,…

11 Bang-Bang

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

Staring at a Bird Feeder

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Will it strike suddenly?

GOING NOWHERE

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you may meet the man of your dreams.

COSMOGONY

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I am sitting on our porch in the middle of the night. I can't sleep. The stars look like runway lights. Out of boredom, I reach out my hand to connect the distant dots. The tip of my finger hits…

Island Music

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Of all the things Shelly hated about her job, the music was the worst.

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.