Most read stories

A Tragedy In Three Acts (St. Petersburg Blues)

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His thought was shattered then by the horrible grind of the telephone in the hall. Surely not for me, he thought. One of the other tenants has a friend who’s landed vipivka, no doubt after 39 straight days of hunt. Booze is so damnably hard to find

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.

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.

Self Portrait with Google

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Try it with and without/ middle name or middle initial.// Try different keywords.

At Night in the Field

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“Ol’ Betty has a nice set of headlights,” he says with a wink as he springs out of the recliner.

Seascape

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They had been wintering on the Cape under gunmetal skies...

A Tale Of Three Titties

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"Someone should have told her that less is more..."

RT @dadaism #amwriting

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

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…

In Search of Dawn

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the air is a fierce tangerine tonight

News That Stays News

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Some trick of the morning light makes the tattoo on her ankle look like the burn from a branding iron. She had watched her father as he slept last night. He was handsome and innocent, like a baby boy.

Running

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On the way home, “Friendly honk,” he said.

Dancing Beneath a Gazebo

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We learned to dance beneath a gazebo / in Spring Lake Park / We were fourteen

On Being Bald....

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Hair today...gone tomorrow The sun beats down on my balding crown.

The Little Things (three versions)

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It's the little things that trip us up: a small hole in a level field, an innocuous root in a well-trod path, a disinclined sidewalk...

Octopus

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My ride, my good friend Morning was due any minute, but of course, he/she was always late. My costume was a dog. I was stuck to another dog, in the act of passion. A stuffed one. A basset hound. I said my name was Lightning.

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.

from Flatlander's Suite

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Under nervously flickering fluorescent lights / your name will grow / fed by the tongues of Those Who Never Leave

Language

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this reaching, this striving to love like it's there becoming something we need.

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

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…

Adultery and Africa

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“What would you think if I committed adultery?” She pauses very briefly before replying. “What, you got time on your hands?”

How To Write Funny

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I've never really been impressed with authors that write long teary-eyed novels about people dying of terrible diseases or uplifting stories about the armless boy who made the wrestling team.

Jim Shows Me Twelve Jesuses

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in cinematic snippets, ten-second scenes of twelve Sons …

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…

The Photo of the Bulletproof Man

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He was corporate then, young, his wife gorgeous, the collar flipped up on his twill overcoat, a lit cigarette in one hand, the other around his wife’s waist. They stood outside. It looked chilly. She wore a hat. He looked bulletproof.

The Man Who Couldn't Move

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Without warning his eyes expertly navigated into a closed position setting off the dream machine long without power until this very second.

The Red Suitcase: Part 1

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He had become an accessory to a murder.

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #78

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A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.

Heat

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It was so hot we walked out on our husbands. There were reasons, we supposed. They left the refrigerator doors open all day, grabbing beers when they passed by, tossing the sticky caps upon counters. They drove their Metropolitans to buy food, leaving th