Most read stories

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.

Midnight Mass

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Mom wraps a bulky-knit scarf around my face and over my mouth. She tightens it into a big knot in back of my collar.

Beelzebub

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The jewels were dragonflies, buzzing lazily, Beelzebub’s hair a golden meadow.

Burning Trash

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Boys start fires all the time— it's a rite of passage— so when your father gives you the task of setting fire to the family's trash, you don't mind, and when the flames ignite inside the old dishwasher he heaved into the woods behind the house, you…

A Christmas Mistake

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But that night we were happy, looking all around at the bright lights of the several cities that we could see.

Mountains

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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 price for love after all. I no longer…

Bloodsport

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At last one of the men on the line bowed his head in a silent prayer for deliverance from what was about to come, then lifted his head and shouted loudly for his fellows to charge.

Orpheus Today

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It is only seven-thirty but the night is full, gloom seizing Highway 66. There is a carcass on the road, maybe a human, slumped next to an empty ice cream truck. Several stars hang up in the East, drunken constellations scrambling to find meaning.

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.”

The Canoeist's Luncheon. Renoir

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The artist leans back in his chair, smoking a cigarette after lunch, looking away from the table toward the right He is dressed in white, and he's practically stretched out his entire length, to relax after rowing the boat all morning. Sunlight

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.

you're a james now. here's what to expect:

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fetal position can make a man seem small. harmless. like the child your womb won't carry...

Brain Cleaning & Repair

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You've been given some really cruel thoughts that are not your own.You've been given some really stupid sets of rules which are impossibleto follow. You can learn to manage for yourself. Remember who youwere before they told you who you were. You've been trainedsince birth…

Gravity as Destiny

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Falling// is something that comes quite naturally/ to puffed up things. Like the soufflé

Arcana Magi Wisp

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Gon found himself slowing behind everyone. His wings slowly tired. The bird took a chance and pulled up. He could feel it behind him.

Residual

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Our afterlife depends upon// what interesting shape

Breakup Scene

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For the past 6 months our love for each other had been akin to a chess game. We avoided each other’s traps, fortified our defenses, set up gambits of our own, exchanged pieces of our lives, and now it was endgame. Checkmate. Time to move on.

Points of Light on A Pearl Line 1

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Directions: Match the stanza to the Beat icon: A. William S. Burroughs B. Peter Orlovsky C. Jack Kerouac D. Carl Solomon E. Allen Ginsberg F. Neal Cassidy

Stomping the Big Ozarka Bottle Flat

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I dream of benzene rings/ and polymer shrouds

Ring, Ring, Ring

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If this is trouble, please call someone else.

Bye-bye Love

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Barbie wore only her clear pink heels...

Helen of the Poetry World

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That night we went out to shoot some pool at the pool hall over on Durant Avenue, which was above a bar called Kip’s. Rotten Bobby walked in with his own damn pool cue, which came broken down in two pieces. He carried it in a narrow felt-lined carrying

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.

where horses stood ground

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Where horses once were tethered grows their grass . . .

The Havisham Complex

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Zinvushka Zokolovskaya and I first met at the local botanical garden.

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

HOTEL PEOPLE

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It's 6:45 a.m. A gritty, mundane sort of magic pervades the air at "Valentine’s" in the Hamilton Hotel.

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.

Moony Star Moony Star

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a lost children…