Most read stories

Anna Lee

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He first saw her stepping off a water taxi by the Long Docks in the rain at night, her right arm atrophied from some early childhood disease, dangling like an apology, her other holding a cigarette. Her wet black hair hung past her shoulders and her eyes

Hobby Lobby

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In human rights, a man and a woman may marry and bring forth a family. It is a civil right in the U.S. but not a human right (as far as I know) to raise a child singly without the knowledge of the other parent.

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.

Seasonal Poem

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One of the poems in my collection, One Day Tells its Tale to Another, published December 16, 2012. Available on Amazon. My first book!

Ilex Cahokia and A Common Piece

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remembering Cahokia, a place we rent near the water's edge, for we dare not enter

Geode

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There is a rock somewhere with the truth of the sky in it, the glitter of otherworldly charms that falsify the ugliness of the literal.

Corkscrewing, Pt. II.

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Well, just put your hand on my knee, alone in my room, perv, unasked-and-unflirted for, go get a date, you coward, you limp-dicked male bitch . . .

Beneath the Light of an Exploding City

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Under the darkness of their new city. The heave and moan of structures as they breathed and pulsed. Under the darkness of this city, under the hum of their florescent bulbs and the tumbling rattle of motorcars, the wheeze of their machines and the clank o

WARNING: I Brake for Plastic Shopping Bags

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"...innocent butterflies of pollution trapped and entangled,"

Facing Mecca

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I was raised in a big city in the slow South. I know a little about cross cultural dining and where Delta Blues collides with Sly Stone, Al Green, and Zeppelin. Dirty rice in the Dirty South. Fried chicken, collards, and pintos. Fried velveeta…

My Name is William Hurt and I Am a Movie Star

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Not to sound too ridiculous, but Hurt was giving me the hurt, and it felt good.

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.

The Shadow People

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Two summers later, the ritual began. Carol left her house at midnight, having served her husband and daughter a heavy dinner that left them caged in their sleep. She was like a thief working in reverse: she rose from bed with her husband’s first snore,

Mountains

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Assiduity Six

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"Every generation is a new generation, isn't it? What's so different about your generation?"

Kickstand

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Past the pavilion, past the factory, past the underside of the bridge where the surfers jimmy their sloppy fingers over the oil barrels.

Boomer Tunes Pop Quiz

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If you're a Boomer, your brain is teaming with decades-old Pop tunes that you just can't forget. The real reason you can never remember where you put your keys? Too many of your brain cells are clinging to every last lyric to “Fire and Rain,” “Free…

Owl, Glass, Deer

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He calls it an owl glass: he’s allowed: he’s six.

Dirty Laundry

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There was a small slanted hole through the edge of the door, and another one in the door frame. She pushed the door closed to check. The holes matched up.

we're already at the movies

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israeli flares light gaza/ casting incandescent nudity/ upon jumbled puzzle piece buildings.

Samantha’s Note to Her Husband

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By February, I had decided, That you'd tear out my throat every morning if it meant your favorite song would play from my neck.

Say What

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Jane says to Roy, “What are you doing, Roy?”“Fuck off, Jane, I'm reading,” says Roy.“Well you could have just said so.”“I did.”“I mean just without—”“Yeah, well fuck off anyway.”“I've had…

I Am Speckles the Clown

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Food is silly. Eating is silly. Yet the camaraderie of sharing a table is not silly. It is sacred. It becomes silly when the jello arrives.

How Would Jesus Drive?

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Contemporary persecution of Christians takes on milder forms of torture like having to explain away something Pat Robertson said, or constantly having to hear about Fred Phelps picketing funerals because he happens to hate homosexuals.

A Little Load of Paint

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Cézanne sags during a moment of paint. There is an umbrella in the room whose surface collects his thoughts. Outside, in the rain, the grass and garden smell strongly of spring. Fruit litters the table. Light through the window writhes in conversation with shape and…

Smoke and Stars

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as distant lights all must shiver before joining in a Milky Way river

I’m Afraid You May Have Made Some

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awfully evil decisions upstairs in your head that could come back to haunt you in your later years;I'm here to report your zooming about hair isn't really one of them. You have found the infernal wheel works in all four directions at once. Good for you.…

Everything You've Got

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I reach into my pocket for my keys and discover the cough drops Iput there a week ago have melted. Now my fingers are sticky. And I don’t have my keys.

IRON Meditations (thoughts while pressing a clean shirt for work)

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An yet we are all inmates...

Need and Desire

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“I mean it, Hanna. I don't want you to.” But his leg felt carved away where her head had lain. One stupid thing jostling another for attention. He was afraid that if she touched him again, he'd have her on the ground.