Most read stories

Snuggle

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“I’m tired, Art” The Virgin said. She was already curled up beside their dog, Lance.

The First Day of Summer

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It is the first day of summer, a blue-green afternoon, and we sit beneath the English oak, Quercus robur. Everything has at least two names. It is the first day of summer, or the last day of something else.

My Poetic Nemesis

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Except for the bathroom stalls—you know the one that goes “Here I sit all broken-hearted”—the only poetry in the house is composed by Hazel, recited to her fawning sycophants.

What you're waiting for.

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I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.

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

Sax Named Pegasus

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I was just sitting in the corner, stirring my stories with a straw that sucked characters out of bars.

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.…

Greenback Fly

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It doesn't take a genius to figure how he sank, in the drink, like Jeff Buckley. Like a stone.

Fa La La La La

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A pinprick breaks the black/ and pins the spin of constellations/ around its still point.

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

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An yet we are all inmates...

Subsistence Culture

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Defy the impulse to grow beyond/ your means and the means of the/ place where you lie at night.

Brave New World

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awoke in confusion, fear and hurt never seen before that day a year past

Biz One-Upmanship 101

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"One-upmanship" is a strategy for defeating an opponent somewhat unfairly without actually cheating.

Hard Times

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None of this is real, he says, and the path slopes down to a house that is possibly haunted. One always looks in such windows, one cannot not look at the predictable detritus of another's failure, a queer satisfaction, a fairy's dust. But no, not real, none of it. And…

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.

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...

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 . . .

Fringe Element

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In order to be a catalyst for catharsis — which is just a fancy way of saying agent of change — you have to be willing to condition yourself into something partially inhuman. Only something on the very outskirts of humanity…

Dirty Movies

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He liked to take pictures of her, and she liked to pose. It made her horny, she said.

Navigation and Perseverance

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“Gladys Miller!” the dog shouted. “Live a little. TiVo it.”

A Girl and Her Trees

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The trees would answer with a creak and a crackle. Fall was near, a rotten apple.

Smoke and Stars

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

One Day

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I was ashamed of my conscience.

Once upon a time.

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"Tell me a story."

Easy Rider

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She stood there with her back to me and her dress around her ankles.

It Came to Pass After This

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We sat in silence, the entire train, the few other passengers in anxious wait to see if I would change my mind. We all flipped pages, glanced up at each other, looked away when noticed.

Real Heart

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A heart which is alive despite everything in the world that wants to deaden it.

Texas Spleen

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Can we survive our Y chromosome?

Killing Hope

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Hope was beauty before I even knew what beauty was with her golden pigtails, brilliant blue eyes and an infectious smile — even after Jamie Delano flung his Frisbee, knocking out Hope’s two front teeth.

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