Most read stories

The Butterfly Effect

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Now it turns out, the story doesn’t begin with the butterfly lady, herself, but with her brother.

Her Hair, a Braid

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She’s there, in a tin, loosely wound beneath sepia tissue paper, a braid to worry in your fingers.

Bullshit Aeneid

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Of arms and the man...

Pour Yourself A Glass of Wine, Hop on the Treadmill and Read This Book

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I don't know if I'm going to get Alzheimer's, but know I don‘t want to. That's why I just read “100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's“ by medical journalist Jean Carper. Doing simple things is something I'm good at. And while I'm…

The President is Giving the State of the Nation Address Today

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But the world is smaller when I see it / from the crook of your neck.

The Flute Player

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The man who plays his flute every day under the archway near Powell station is not very good. He never plays a real tune, just a series of random notes. There is no rhythm or melody either. In fact, it's not even a flute he…

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Tree

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I found him dead underneath a sycamore tree. I knew it was a sycamore tree because of all the acorns surrounding the body.

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…

Brown Paper

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“Americans like beer, right?” he asks. “It’s not acceptable for a woman to buy beer.” He proffers it in a brown paper bag.

DANCING ON AIR

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You were at a saloon on Water Street. Witnesses say. You were taken out of the place and put on a sloop against your will. Witnesses don’t say.

Burma

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Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…

Clarinet

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It’s beautiful to look at and to hold/ though true musicians would be appalled/ by the black plastic

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

Panorama

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Ben tossed the newspaper aside, muttering. Carol, curled up on the sofa, peered past the glasses at the tip of her nose and past the crossword puzzle. "What?" "The Brits wanted to fight rather than be taken hostage. They had an escort boat ridin

(after Hemingway)

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FOR SALE. One prom dress, never worn. Size 18.

Eve

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When God blessed creation, a ewe gave birth to Adam. When he cursed Satan, Eve hatched from a crocodile's egg.——In naming the animals, Adam marked them for death. His own name was a slow fire. Eve's was an inferno.——In the shelter of the Tree of…

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…

The Plunderer

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Bill (Gunnery Captain of the Left Hand Gun, HMM Plunderer), while not exactly obese, nor could a disinterested observer call him him rotund, was nevertheless the sort of man who'd never be caught by a famine unprepared. And because of this more than regulation…

After the Poison

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I've measured out our time togethersealed it in airtight bottlesthe one labeled 1998 kept closelike smelling saltsOne whiff a camphor waking memaking me high on the idea of usputting blinders on your infidelitiesdouble vodkas and damaging wordsAnd when that isn't enoughI…

In Your Absence

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In Your Absence the yard-cat, Flower, has started sleeping on top of the fridge

Heart of Gold

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"Cooperation and sharing could eliminate poverty."

The Tattered

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The snake-like veins began to pulsate angrily, and viciously about his body. Quickly he rose up about the girl. His heart was now pounding rapidly against his chest. Outstretched, were his wings, the width of the balcony, white and decrepit and old, yet s

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!"

A Handsome Boy Spends a Wednesday

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It distresses me that you will never lust after me / the way you did for that girl / who had her hands around your belt

The Untold Story

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I kept a journal for so many years I've forgotten everything I wrote.

Snowed In

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“ I told you what she said, that she liked me better when I was drinking. Well, that's the way I feel, too. I liked her better when I was drinking.”

Local Man Makes Good

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A junkyard Bison seems an odd choice over the usual dog, but it did the job--trampling trespassers, vagrants and unautorized salvagers with a violent and admirable efficiency

DMV

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When you bring information, it does not arrive.

To My Children, With Apologies

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My apologies also for those crowded roads you and your families have to drive on. My generation would have built more public transportation but, in all honesty, we just didn't give a damn.

Phenomenology

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Someone will labor to keep it alive/ although the body will want but/ to return to random particles