Most read stories

The Scarab

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He thought the scarab was bad luck. I knew too little about omens to argue.

Snake Walk

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The Viper turns so quickly that Father's grabbing hand now faces its head instead of its tail.

Building

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he told me to be careful,my feet may bleedI watched him walk up and down the path,occasionally bendingwhy?carpenter nails, pieces of broken shinglesall along the pathnow I know why

(after Hemingway)

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

My Boyfriend Believed in Aliens

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My boyfriend unequivocally believed in the existence of aliens. He was the Mulder to my Scully, though when I said so, he had no idea what I was talking about. I never understood how someone so E.T. obsessed could have missed 'The X-Files'.He would look skyward, eyes…

Happy Valentine's Day From Your Librarian

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Is every librarian a poet at heart? I don't know, but a group of librarians recently put their heads together and came up with these library-themed Valentine's Day poems: Roses are red Your book's overdue You've had it for months Which is…

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.

Edward Ogle the Third

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Assimilated wheat germ integrated ant worm the capital of brazil.

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…

Gentle

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Your voice so soft / I wish it was touch.

Not Sure If You're Actually Having Sex? I Can Help.

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When I stumbled upon evidence that the man I'd loved and trusted for 20 years had a secret girlfriend for the past 10 of those years, he tried to deny it.“We never had sex!” he told me. And I believed him. For about two minutes.“You never…

Space, Blank, Uninterrupted

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Space, blank, uninterrupted, but then a fissure, a crack, a corridor, and down it you're walking.

Young Turks

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There was a whole group of us Young Turk poets who hung out at the Savoy Tivoli in North Beach. Most of them drove cabs, (whereas I was now working in a damned gas station for Angel, my publisher’s man, who got me a job there.) They would double-park thei

On Living in New York City in 2009, After Watching a Documentary on New York City in the Late 1800s

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God's honest truth, I wake up every morning when my clock punches out its dulcet, insistent clangs, a setting called Ultra Zen Up & Out. I brush my teeth with a blue dollar store toothbrush and watch one of the five morning TV shows designed to let me know the weather…

Admit Nothing

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Traveling in half-lit fluorescence, she smiles up at me, pale and strained

Internet Hole (an excerpt from Psychopomp)

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Seventeen-year cicadas are the sometimes-singers that surprise spring with the ugliest mouths of all.

Paperclip

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The Americans don't want us. They want knowledge. They want to eat with us. They want technology and weapons. They want the results of research they themselves are too craven to perform, answers to questions they ask themselves in whispers, in the dark. T

Please Take

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I have a ball-pein hammer in my coat pocket.

Testament (complete)

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Their nouns are few and stark./ Ours are numerous and dappled/ or subtly shaded and shadowed/ by circumstance and possibility.

Get Me to the Church on Time

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In my upper room, a sermon/ was playing about sundry.

Lost in Suomi

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Wind pummeled me awake, smelling of pine and some quality of newness I could not identify...

Scene from the Clinic

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No way to know why she's here, but scars and scabs can hold more information than a file or chart.

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...

Beamers

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I try again. "You can make a big cup by putting your hands and fingers together, see?" He glares at me. "A giant could make a big cup," he says. "A giant could make a giant cup." I thought so before, and I’ll say it again. A little genius.

Water, Water Everywhere

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Later I asked Mark if he wanted to watch, but his wife wouldn’t let him. She didn’t like kinky stuff, she said.

Mercury Unbound - 3

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I've been mostly positive since joining up with Sister Helen. My previous pessimism involved spiritual degeneration, moral decline and decay, weak and weary instincts. I clung to life, afraid to die. Then I read something by Nietzsche, I'm not sure where but, like a seed,…

My Dog Was Wrong About You

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When it was time to leave, she lingered beside you, bidding you to come again. I flicked my cat, dog tail, indifferent. She wanted to lick your cheek.

Wayne Recalls Rocking and the Power of Positive Thinking

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My mother told me I came out of her screaming and didn’t stop for two years. After that I took up rocking.

To See Who's There

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To See Who's There Able these days to search through centuries, I click, scribble, cut and paste, skim, reject, record, resurrect a wet stone wall, the smell of burning peat. Bob's your uncle, Peggy's …

Protect

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The fabric on the waiting room chairs is stained and matted, but has been cleaned over and over.