Most read stories

Restaurant Rondo

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Before she flushes the toilet the world is spinning.

Conditions of a Narrator

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Moore doubted, perhaps, that readers could sympathize with a man who had killed someone for a cause or a girlfriend who forgave him. Perhaps she felt that maiming is (not) worse than murder. Perhaps she decided that the story should be about that.

Butterfly Man

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Now it was black line, wall, turn, and black line.

Final Phases of a Secret Love

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I keep my love for you in me, / like the egg of a worm,

Freedom

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I was seeing the owl lady from time to time when I met Caroline.

SNAFU (March Paddy Whacker Challenge)

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The unpublished writer remembered the carnage that surrounded his Foxhole in France and decided he was done praying. All around lay the evidence that no one was listening. The drunken pastor stumbled away.

THANKSGIVIKAH

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It was a dark and stormy night.

Down on the Street

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dirty-pretty

The Scream

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Coagulating sky, a turbulentheave of orange, blood red,hell's fire smeared —below, tar seas bulgeat the seams, engulfing ships.Pier-bound she streaksand wails as the seaswells and threatens to claim —, corpse head, baldeyes, her death robescling to…

Water Break

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Whenever you act as if you're one of themit makes perfectly sad sense tome; you are one of them; we're supposed to believe there areno shadows in that particular choice? When you areone of them, they say youfall asleep with a peaceful droopinglip to your smile. When…

The Work of Constant Rising

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The poet said, ‘I feel the fell of dark, not day.” but day it always is. Bright! Bright! the city claims its blue salutes; its stopping in mid-sentence at a name where fingers roam a stone.

Nadja on Nadja -- an excerpt

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"I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence, memory trace of past events, as the snail leaves its slime." Francis bacon “Feminine …

The Next Landscape

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The day came shyly up to me like a rolling orange thing. Perhaps of alien origin, but not if the Buddha of our foolish hopeless dreamer inside has anything to say about it. It said, pick me up. I did. It looked like forever on the inviting horizon with trees as…

Night Moves

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I could trust that most nights I would drop off to sleep at around midnight and shortly thereafter dream an “us dream”, a how we were dream, a sensing of our bodies undulating, then moving faster, moving with the waves of a special music only we could hear, with…

Jack-in-the-Box U-Haul

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“When I was six years old, Dad came home from Vietnam and picked me and Mama up from her sister's house in Boston. We packed a U-Haul with everything we owned from T.V. to toothbrush. Dad hitched the trailer to the Rambler and drove us South, back home to Carolina. A…

Snow and snow, and snow and snow and snow, and snow, and snow

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A tough enough signal to read under the best of meteoric circumstances, this is one maybe I'll keep on thinking about. I might be able to make something everlasting out of this crazy shamble for love after all. I no longer…

Big Al Dissects Literary Fiction since No One Else in the Bar could pronounce Aristotle

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“Well” I say. “What do you think about the dilemma of a guy who’s tortured by a history of incest and bondage?” “Depends” Says Al. “On who was cested and who was bonded.

Waffle House Worker Survives Wild Ride on Car Hood

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After three teens took off without paying and he clung to the hood of their car He wasn’t trying to be a hero sandwich or otherwise but climbed onto the hood when they tried to run him over There was some question and dispute over th

Learning About Sonnets

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Sitting in the upper last row of Wyatt Hall, Matt stretched his long legs under the fold-up desk top. He looked down past his fellow students' heads to barely catch something Dr. Mock had said. . . .

The Chords are Clean, the Growl is Real

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"Good, it's Link Wray again,"

PARK

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Shadows from a star Never too close Never too far

30 East Towards Texarkana

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44 miles out the gauntlet of Red River pines cast shadows pointing north.

THE GRANDMOTHER OCCUPIES

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In her blanched beauty, seated in a silver deck chair, with complacent socialist ways

The Outlaws

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"So, what do you do for fun around here? I mean, other than each other?" Carlo's smirk broke into full-fledged laughter; Yuri feigned shock. Iris leaned forward and breathed into Bronte's ear: "We misbehave."

Big Legs

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Her body: normal as a body, a baby’s body: skin and eyes.

gravelortian part 6

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Tears and tears and tears flowed

The Shit List

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I have a tablet called, The Shit List...

Blizzard on 105th Street

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severe snow storm coming. I'm looking for a parking spot and listening to Machito & Charlie Parker

The Well

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It was by the well on one cold early spring morning

Starting from Scratch

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Each time his eyes closed, he shook off the sleep, whimpered, and opened them wide again. I’d never watched a baby fall asleep before, but I realized at that time that falling asleep could be a scary thing. The world gets fuzzy and starts slipping awa