Most read stories

Bootsy Goes on a Bender

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Bootsy awoke with a hangover that only brain surgery could cure, a hangover that caused a seam to open in the known universe, leaving Bootsy on one side while all other matter sped away, away.

The Audition

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My music teacher, Luigi Biagi, told me that he was done with me. He said it was time I moved on to more specialized teachers. Since my passion was composing and arranging, he recommended Al Fine.

Boom Boom Boom Boom

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“Man, that Fats just nothin’ but a powerhouse, nothin’ but ‘Jesus Rolled Away the Stone’ and them Cats his apostles.” La KeeSha replied, “Ya’ll a real Blues Daddy now.”

Metastasis

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I am eternal/ as long as the power holds

Ackermann

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When he took Medieval German Lit in graduate school, Ackermann read Der Ackermann aus Böhmen by Johannes von Tepl. His professor was amused both by his last name and that his grandparents were Germans from Bohemia. Of course, only his grandmother was from Bohemia and…

Gay Paree

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I had a crappy room on the fourth floor of a crappy hotel.

GOT

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I don't know how long I was down on the curb. When I came around it took several minutes to realize that it wasn't the moon overhead at all but a street light and the sticky feeling stuff I was lying in was, yeah, my blood. And the hand on my shoulder wasn't hers. I…

Disappearing Ink

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Our ink was disappearing. All of it.

Our Graves

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But no matter how we died, we all end up here, in the Meadowlark Children's Cemetery.

Boy Meets Girl

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Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. It was an unexpected meeting, but one that was sure to bring a lot of change for both. They met at a work event. Some friends wanted to put together a company and they had both been invited to be part of the project. Boy smiled. Girl remained…

The Virgin of Last Resort

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In a little dirt church at the end of the world stands the ikon of an unrecognized saint.

Removals

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Her mother was worried.

Snatch 8 (the zombie flash sequence--it never dies)

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Oh, gracious mercy, oh...

secrets

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Don’t worry about what went aloud. I said nothing.

Cartoon Campfire

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This is the parallel room I keep my heart in. Got a solo fireplace. I don't want to invite anything else into the story. It doesn't matter if no one knocks on the door ever again. I'm too shy to hope for much more than a couple of Interesting shadows…

Why No One Writes Epics Anymore

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No one writes epics anymore. Why? Perhaps it's because we no longer share mythologies. Once there was a shepherd, and now there is a Google bus loaded with pricks. Yes, you say, but they are good at math. Each and every one of them. And this is true. I envy them…

The Dirt

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The coffin-sized pit in his basement wasn’t freshly dug.

Flannery O'Connor's Tea Party

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“He's the one who took five tries to find your vein during your last blood draw, right?” This question spilled from the row of twenty EKG machines that now made up the hospital building's larynx

'So I fucked Beavis ... so WHAT??'

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[CAUTION: "DISINTEGRATION OF THE FUNCTIONING PSYCHE," IS, APPARENTLY, A "DEEPLY PERSONAL" EXPERIENCE!"]

The Good Farmer

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He leans in close then, close enough that when he speaks, his words tiptoe out and tuck me in.

The Tapeworm of Selfish Mammon Eats All the Good Will in the World

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She caretakes, he takes care

The Meaning of Life

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One must not confuse the meaning / of life with the joy of living

SHADOW

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I am a shadow. Cooler than liquid. I don't need a container to take shape.

thumbing through the Jesus book

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We’re on our way out, my brother and me, to the grave­yard.

Hart Crane Pantoum No. 1

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One must be drenched in words.

When the Moon Blooms

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Your faded presence in sepia dream returns, firelight whispers and vanilla scented ash. We were a beautiful knot: sinew and hemp, burlap and magnolia petal, concrete and vapor. Gray kisses hovered overhead, misty…

Longshot Down Undah

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He said stuff like ‘Crikey that's a knife',” she said, “it was bad, really really bad.”

Wild Dreams ofReality, 11

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I took my first shower away from home as if it were a ritual cleansing. It felt especially good, even exciting to be taking a shower in the bathroom of another woman. Why was that? Maybe because it didn't have marble around the bathtub, and it wasn't e

SECRETS

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they don't tell

Our Terror Closet

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"Honey," I called out to my wife. "Why do we have Spam in the closet?" "You mean unsolicited bulk messages sent electronically?" "No--the canned, precooked meat product made by the Hormel Corporation."