Most read stories

Literate Reply

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an oven mitt in Dachau

The King's Snit

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Political doggerel.

Her

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It's time, more than anything

Rain Dance

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You were gone, long gone, and I could no longer smell your scent as I walked through the empty house. I couldn't bring myself to unpack the boxes, and they lurked like a forest of overgrown drab Legos.

Grocery Deliveries

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I was shooting baskets in the driveway when the Mexican kid delivered the groceries. He drove in fast and loud . . .

Combinatorics

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“I'm thinking about math class,” she said. “The solution to three factorial.” “Easy,” Leo said.

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

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I got on the Greyhound Bus at 11 a.m. and sat by myself staring out the window. I could see the reflection of my own dark beard in the window, a 27 year-old man with a huge poem bursting my heart, gasping to get out into the bright lit-up world out there,

The Jaws of Life

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You’ve known her since grade school and even though you’ve never copped a feel, it gave you a strange chill when you heard boys talking about her breasts, pressing against madras or chamois with some devilish life force, or how one day she’ll fuck l

The Sleep of Trees (Three Parables), part 3

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in a puddle of water, the butterfly rests on a stone

My Piper Laurie

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Eddie meets Sarah Packard, a “college girl” played by Piper Laurie. She walks with a limp, a fact Eddie doesn’t notice at first because she’s sitting down at a diner table in a bus station. She’s alcoholic and writes poetry.

Tour Guide

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“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”

This Cab Goes Out To The Styx

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“Hey, Buddy,” he says finally, “you were supposed to make a right back there”, and I can see his eyes flash as he reads my ID card on the dash...

Every Day Away From You Is A Gift

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People suck. They suck you down, and if you're not careful, they'll ruin you.

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, lv - lxiii

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facts of matters are not as they seem,/hour by hour crafty comments creep in,/another hour and "the good" is a horror:/ our human blindness is older than our sight.

I Wake Up Teetering

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I wake up on the edge of the mattress, teetering. The dog is looking at me funny.

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.

Larry's "Gonna Die" Parrtayye

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When we started plans for the party, none of us wanted Larry to die, most of all Larry himself. Actually, when we first started plans for the party, Larry wasn’t dying.

Hoop Dreams, Harvard Style

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“You have no idea what your lives will be like if you can get out of the ‘hood. You could be driving Volvos, eating Tuscan cuisine, getting MacArthur ‘genius’ grants!”

Epiphany on a July Morning

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It's that day in July when you feel really bummed because you can't find your favorite white sleeveless shirt that you wear on the hottest days of the yea

This is Not the Great Depression!

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Going to the candy store at night in the section of town called Kalliope. Riding bike, trying to get there before it closed at ten. Getting candy at that little store with the glass containers and the rows and rows of candy. Getting milk there…

Pretty New Landscape

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It's important to make a sure sound. It's not impossible you know. It's just funny I suppose, like being in a dream of another dream. All these things could be mashed and tumbled together to make us one big clay hero, someone…

Peter's Office

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This is Peter’s office. The room is small, and the wood paneling is painted white. Light colors, Peter has been told, make a room appear larger.

What I Am

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I am a happy cog

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

Rubber-Band Requiem

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“Now we lay you in your grave There was no way you could be saved You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell Which is why you will burn in hell.”

Grand Theft Auto (a true story)

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He took the car out into the middle of Nowhere, Mexico, and drove it at top speed, off-road for a day and a night. I am talking strut-breaking, axle-wrecking, wheel-bending, paint-peeling conditions and balls-to-the-wall, testosterone-drunk driving.

Eucharist

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The Devil and the Holy Ghost played Euchre on Friday nights. The Devil drank rock and rye and the Holy Ghost went for Miller Lite. What just irks hell out of me, pardon my French, the Ghost began, is that nobody knows who the fuck I am.

RINSE AND OXIDATION

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...listening to the ache of errs our mouths had become.

6.0 in Eureka

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"Shit," said the Charge Nurse. "Not again."

Stomping the Big Ozarka Bottle Flat

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I dream of benzene rings/ and polymer shrouds