Most read stories

Haiku for the Worried

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Real life escapes you.

My dark job history

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Sometime in the late 60s when I was thirteen I had this paper route for the San Mateo Times.

One of Four

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She stood with her sisters, pretty maids in a row, felt cold despite the scorching spring sun. Heard what the man said but didn’t register; words from the Lord flew around her like the flighty trill of the robins up above. The birds made more sense.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 9

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Warren Jeffries left this girlfriend of his named Karen, who was also a poet, and overnight she announced she’d gone back to being a lesbian, she’d so had it with MEN! She did a reading of her new series of Sappho poems at Cody’s Bookstore,

Wounds & The People Who Poke Them

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My friend once told me about this island of trash in the Pacific. He said that if you threw a piece of trash in any body of water it would find its way there somehow.

lighthouse

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the urgent, naked glow of opportunity or the dim fluorescent nuisance of an object out of reach

Radioactive Rain

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It’s an almost mystical experience, walking in the warm, radioactive rain. It’s a rare moment of peace, a gathering of breath before the next storm, before the next wave of panic, before those frozen in shock come to themselves and rush through the stree

Marion Winik Has Kissed A Lot Of Frogs

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Writer Marion Winik has ridiculously bad taste in men. She's an intelligent woman and a terrific writer, a good mom with a good heart, and ALL of her romantic relationships are train wrecks.Winik recounts her quest for love at age 50 in her new book, “Highs In The Low…

Axiology and Semantics: Expiration Dates

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In my seriousness I am not making the case that none of “this” (our contemporaneity, our historical moment) “matters”.

At the Faire

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Carl and Dolly were actors. Dolly was offered the lead in a porno film, but she turned it down.

You Know It!

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"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"

You

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What is the meaning of you?

Sweetie and Jack

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Let's walk through this park. We can talk until dark. You have the look of a wolf. I'm not stupid, Jack. I'm a lamb, you'll see, once you get to know me. That tat is fierce and your leathers tight black. My ink is old and black suits me, I'm told. …

Table Thoughts

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“You should've let him drown,” she once told me. Doesn't she see that I did? I'll let her drown, too.

And the Canon Rap Got Played

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Back in the sixties, I chanced upon a list of books. That’s right. Sifting a black garbage bin, I found the long lost canon. Seizing the moment, I snatched the list, and cradled it in my palms. I felt proud and patriotic for saving such a noble list f

just…

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wash over me i fear not the erosion let the future scientists take their soul samples to figure out what happened how was there warning and when you go away let me believe the residue left behind is a choice a souvenir of the moment i want you full…

Ireland

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Ireland - her beauty is like a drug.

Kimchi Hatchet

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“You’re not Jesus"

Death Comes To Visit

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He was almost dying when I reached the hospital. I walked past the open automatic sliding doors into the lobby, almost vacant except a few people milling around, the nurses fighting sleep behind the desks while waiting for their shift to end.

Instinct

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They coo and gurgle in the warmth of twig and down. They are so delicate, hard to look at without thinking of death. I tell them I want for them chief among all things strength, speed, resilience.

Fireworks

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You load the pipe and suck in the fireworks. Whistling missiles, slithering sparks, shivering teases, dripping embers. You fall asleep with flashing neon outside and the Fourth of July in your veins. When you wake up, your room is the saddest place o

Shimmer

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She grinned when he steadied himself against the sofa. “Boy, I know you.”

Poem for My Wife and Three Daughters

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Last night Ariana our second daughter, only 8,wanted to baptize you for your birthday. Her hair shimmered and the face of her joy reminded me of Two Oceans Plateauin the Beartooth Range in southern Montana.As she walked from the sink she carrieda large…

a writer's plight.

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contact. intimacy. human fucking connection.

The Swimmer

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He got tired of the pool party, the chit-chat, the suburban posturing, and he decided to swim home.

Broken Waters

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Barn Owl

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I was out of my element. I was on property that wasn't mine. In a woods with mansions tucked away among the trees.

For Kate

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I had to kill someone today. Do not be alarmed, she was only real to me.

Dad and the Red Light

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The light turns green.

The Writer to Her Lawyer in Siberia

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Often, meeting attractive people we pay very little emotion toward them ... Why? It's because we have no common (often the economic in its sense) project of living to bring us together ... When such project exist ... Then, well ... we find people sexy