Most read stories

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…

The Unicorns, Part One

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Later, your father stared, confused, at the empty spot where the wall paint layers ended in the shape of the old machines. He stopped coming in.

Ketchup and eggs

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As a young baby, perhaps a year old, I have a memory of sitting on myfathers lap, in front of a coal stove to keep us warm, while my mothercooked soft boiled eggs for him every morning. He would break offa piece of his toast, dip it in the egg, and feed it to…

Jack Arnfinn

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... and the train pulls up and my shadow from yesterday steps off, and I'm standing on one leg balancing just like the weather between winter and spring, I hear a siren and my heart races, I'm about to step aboard when I hear footsteps behind me and two hands cover my eyes…

We're Still Here

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the beeps, rhythmic, tell us that you're still with us

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

March

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The lungs forsake their love of breath. The arms/ resist throwing off the small weight of sheets.

Dance 'round an Invisible Fire

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“Do we really want to treat her? Is she even really sick, or does she live in a country as real as ours, but one we can never visit?”

A Catalogue of Ways to Die at Sea

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Quimby’s eyes lit up. “Oh, lads, there must be a thousan’ ways to die at sea! I’ve made th’ Atlantic passage a good many time; lemme recount some manners of death I’ve witnessed with mine own eyes.”

Visions On The Beach

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I walked along the beach today, and there I saw them all; including the latest lost: little Tiven, Tommy, Michaela & my Paul. Grandma painted at her easel, set upon the dune. Uncle Eddie bent in half, laughing like a loon, Oliver growled…

Tying Flies

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He plucks the feathers and winds thread to simulate an insect’s torso.

Ashes (for RC)

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Floating along the ebbs of the ocean,toward the horizon, where time has no say,an end that will never be reached.

Whispers (set of 3 themed poems)

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Storm and Shelter

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Sometimes one person's shelter is another person's storm.

21st Century Living

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there should be a word for 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.

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.

A Paper that Changes Things

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The dowdy woman in fart nailed the vim.

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.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Lasagna

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When we talked about the lasagna, we were, I see now, talking about different things. I.e., I was talking about lasagna, and you were talking about almost everything but. You weren't talking about the dry, burnt noodles or…

A Dream Lay In Wait

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Roanne hungered. Memory had ruled her forever. Shards really, edged like machetes: daddy, whose fingers had eyes in the dark. Momma, ensconced in the shadows. Inside the church, those pairs of short…

Deal Me Out

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Vegas is turning out to be my kind of town. Easy money, free booze, and everyone is too overstimulated to realize I’m broadcasting right into their noggins.

Castor and Pollux

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Over the stained fence the spectres flew and that is where the rain was turning colder and colder in the time when the trees had become mostly bare.

Far

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His mother named him Far because she had high hopes for him

Passion vs. Security

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They blew in the doorway of the café at the French Hotel like two sparrows chasing each other. Their wings down in the dust, unheeding any danger in their hunger for each other. I knew the man who was about to become her husband, so maybe this was her las

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is Trying to Say Something to His Mother

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The songs that she used to sing to him still dance in his head while he wrangles equations. The stars in the cosmos spell out her name.

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…

Ah, The Drink

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My mother was Irish as Paddy's pig. So all her family. Lovely people they were. Also, seldom seen among the Folk; stone cold sober. My father's family; Bavarian German. Bavaria's the wrong side of the German tracks. Frankfort people laugh at Bavarians as people in…

Not finding you

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Had this been a film, I’d have seen you at once. Extreme close-up: my finger on the green button that opens the door to the park. Long shot: my leaving my bike at the entrance. Slow shot: my walking down the narrow stone path.

What Old Tamber Had to Say

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“They say she lives alone out there.” “What, like out in the woods?” “Not like way back in a cabin or anything, but in a little house out there off the road. I'm not even sure she has a car.” “What, does she…