Most read stories

Lockdown

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I'm explicating Emily Dickinson when the alarm starts: three long, two short. Lockdown mode. Only there was nothing in the staff bulletin about a drill. So I tell the students to get down on the floor, away from the window. I open the classroom door and lock it from…

In tidal relief

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the world slips under the waves

Seven Things I Learned About David Letterman from Jason Zinoman's "Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night."

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Never touch David Letterman's neck!

RT @dadaism #amwriting

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How much do book editors earn? Peacock Love. (aww…)

Hawk

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Squirrels and mice fear her shadow

When the Muse Abandons You

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I am abandoned to the mundane/ calculations of a small mind/ trapped by small considerations

Tuscaloosa

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a Ferris wheel gently rocks its last riders then dumps them to the ground.

A Quantum of Disappointment

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Reality winks at us then scampers off

Toothbrush

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...and he would stumble from bed in a panic and fling the toothbrush at the mirror cursing all the while "fuck fuck why can't I forget her".

-And Lurking Behind Quasar 3C295 . . .

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“Let’s see that great big telescope of yours,” she exhaled hotly, “I want to grind your lenses!” The doctoral candidate dutifully stood between her and his massive telescope so her hands would encounter some instrumentation with no optical components.

Maze of Sound

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Beneath the crosshatch gazes of the satellites and above the maze of sound, seahorse clouds exhale a glaucoma haze before they are absorbed into surveillance footage

A Gardener in February Thinks About June

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I want to be that daring gardener who ploughs up her front yard -- to the horror of the Neighborhood Association.

Sports day at the School for Clowns

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The javelin was cancelled after the unfortunate incident with Mrs Parker last year, but no one could have predicted this year’s sack race tragedy.

Constable Pulce and the Sunny Dystopia

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Alessandro was no ordinary demon (what demon is?), insofar as he had Constable Pulce's number. In demonly fashion he had Pulce's number in a way Pulce himself did not.

My Period Blood.

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[CAUTION: IF YOU ARE UNDULY "FIXATED" ON GOD, AMERICA, MOM, APPLE PIE, AND/OR BASEBALL ... YOU MAY WANT TO AVERT YOUR EYES!]

THUNDER

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not the sky

now

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koalas burning

The Perfect Day

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Robbie Lange closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair. Yawning, he looked out the window into the black night. Another evening at the office, he thought. He counted the other lit windows in the skyscrapers around his building. “Goodnight, everyone

Meander

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Things are a little out of hand. Information fills room after room after room. I have no bloody idea where I am. I have your photo, but the navigational coordinates are difficult to interpret. Where the hell are you, anyway? I don't like mazes — too much like…

Junctions / Decisions

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Next to you, the mother tightens her grip on her stroller. The young teenager tears her gaze from her mobile phone for an instant.

Graduation (For My Mother)

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I know I’m slipping into my mother’s skin. I answer the phone with her voice; her hands grind the coffee beans. And who is this listening to NPR in the morning while the fresh-faced girls in the neighborhood trudge toward school,, peonies han

With My Eye

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my space heater throws a pale orange light my white candles flicker in the middle of the night

The Serious Writer Tracks His Stats

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The officers carried him away in cuffs as he yelled "I NEED STATS! PLEASE! JUST GIVE ME THE STATS!"

The Bird

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We lived on the edge of a tiny Iowa town, and picked corn fields were steps away.

Knell Quarternion

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The Jester sat down on the edge of his mattress. He laboured to bring one gout ridden leg up to lay across the other. The jingle bell at the tip of his pointed toe mocked each serrated movement of his limb with a jaunty tinkle. He grabbed his ankle to arrest its…

Novembering

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Cinnamon and smoke infuse the days that shorten, chill, accelerate.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 3

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That put a real crimp in our already crimped sex life. Actually I didn’t mind as much as Allison minded. It made her real grumpy when she didn’t get laid. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain, because she was so small that it was l

Albatross Antics

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Track One Johnny Burkemeister, lead vocals and flutist of the band Albatross Antics, sits on his bed thinking in silence. His elbow rests on his knee, and his palm on his forehead with his fingers running through his dirty-blonde hair. He is staring at a copy of Paste…

The Case of the Phantom Paperclip

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I was sitting on the steps in the entryway to our apartment building taking off my running shoes when I spotted a paperclip on the floor. I assumed it had fallen from the mail that my wife had just taken from our mailbox. Once my shoes were removed, I went down to pick…

The Arks What Weren't

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Mrs. Noah eyed the thickening clouds from the front stoop. Noah was still out in the yard kicking up sand in disgust, arguing with himself the whole time. Piles of cedar timber lay strewn all about. Maybe if they’d lived even three days’ journey clos