Most read stories

Van Gogh: Sidewalk Cafe at Night

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The heart of those stars is a dab of yellow light. The darkness of the blue night appears so deep because the downward strokes of the actual sky are interspersed with a violet that’s almost black,

Despite Your Faith

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As the other mammals go extinct,/ we can’t presume we are immune// because of big brains and a history/ of belief in the control of nature.

Parallels

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“I honestly can't believe how much you eat, honey.”, Lenora said as I put down the fork after gorging myself on breakfast. Twelve pancakes, four eggs, two cups of coffee, a glass of milk, and half a pound of bacon had passed through my lips this morning. …

1053

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She pulled into the doorway. Uncertain where to spend the night. Certain there'd once been a place with food. Here. This place. She remembered. Curtains. Small tables. Coffee cups thick-handled and sturdy. Crockery. Some words came back.

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…

mort

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how alike, breakup & death

Father's Day

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“What the hell, bitch?” The words rolled out of my aching jaw. I twisted my legs around, kicking Lila out of the bed. She screamed, crashing to the floor. All I heard was barking. I threw a pillow at her.

Time Flies

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Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince

The Puppet Maker

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My sister Janis called me from Berlin and said to turn on the news. You could see the thick flurries of snow that were falling there and the flat feathers of peoples' breaths issuing from their mouths as they took turns swinging pick-axes, standing on top

Sparky's Gambit

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Sparky took to me immediately. In some atavistic canine way he knew I was simpatico to a dog like him.

Beneficial

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Had I said something before, she might could have saved a little face by telling me to go to hell before we tumbled into the covers. All right. Again, I was no gentleman. Send me to hell. Whatever. I lay there on my back, my arm around her, and listened t

The Man who was followed by butterflies

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They hovered and darted but, after a while, they seemed to be always around him. Lapping at him like the mellow waves that stroked the muddy bank.

Buzz Kill

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Blood had soaked through his Converse All-Stars, and into his cotton sox. It was the smell of metal, of iron more specifically, that nudged his mind out from the fog of shock and denial, closer to the reality of his circumstances.

The Rite and Wrong of Passage

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My sadistic doctor was the only one laughing . Yes sir, I was officially, cordially, confirmed to meet that Irish/ Russian fellow…Colon Oscopy.

Popcorn Tigers

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The last row of furniture is all black leather. In unison the tigers hop onto a couch a piece, sit calmly on their haunches, and reach for remote controls buried in the cushions. Roaring, they paw at the remotes.

That's It

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I am heading to work. It's early and Clare is still asleep. When I hit the breezeway I realize that I forgot my keys. I walk back into the house and start rustling through the junk on the table by the door. After a moment I sense someone standing behind me and…

i found this.

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Home is where my parents live and my relatives visit.

Human Spirit - a poem

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It feels for an exit.

Memory and Restoration

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How a breeze feels evaporating sweat on neck and forearms.

Book of Forgetting

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To make your own, obtain a book with blank pages. Collect materials; postcards, photographs, magazines. Make rules to determine what you do with them. Write things down. Make other rules to determine whether you write in the book or on pieces of paper

The First Snowfall

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the smell of the small cedar chips burning in the fireplace

Five Million Yen: Chapter 7

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The logic of the impoverished was amazing. Like Rita telling me I owed her fifty cents for a token after she stole five million yen from me.

Weight

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We flew./ In my dreams, I can fly.

for my part

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I fear osiris with his feather rising to meet the raven in mid-air they will turn to look at me decide if I go through the door of no return into fierce landscape on my knees I will crumple into the foetal…

The End of Coffee

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I am getting twisted like a cruller into the mess I have made of this morning and I am stretching the meaning of morning to way past its boundaries.

Origins

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I was sleeping the night of a hurricane party. I awoke to lightning flashes. They lit the undersides of descending clouds, and lit the shadows of scattering dancers. The hurricane must have turned inland.

Abel in the Bar by the Youth Hostel

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“It felt like the space under my skin had been filled with desert sand. I did not open my eyes for my body was covered with the dust. A camel could have walked over me and not noticed. I needed to wipe my eyes before I could open them and my body was froz

Four Stories I Cannot Write

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“Per­haps instead of a book I could write lists of words, in alpha­bet­ical order, an ava­lanche of isol­ated words which expresses the truth I still do not know” — Italo Calvino albu­men before child grit secretlyshame august blood …

Six Down

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“You own your own burial plot, but you don't own your home,” he'd said, and I couldn't help but agree.

Klarheit oder Genug

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F.B.I. then or: "I said later 'for a boob job' and imagined her, a public lawyer, wandering Arizona on foot unable to hide a Playboy-Mansion style rack."