Most read stories

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.

The Concord of This Discord

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-Love is a rushing of blood

You Never Forget Your First

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There is nothing like your first time, and by that I am referring of course to the first time you purchased a 45.Going to a record store and buying a 45 is a uniquely Boomer experience. Because, alas, there are no more 45s. Or, for that matter, record stores. The…

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.

9/11

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He laughs and runs just like the other boys even though he doesn’t have a father now, just his mom.

en/core

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(vogued.)

Hip-Hop Elephants of the Golden Palace

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Hello floaty word man / suspended in smoke / chortling coughing with collapsing colon / spraying sounds into the day / making it night and ending the line

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.

The Stars in Illinois

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Only early June, but the heat feels like August. Eleanor and Shelby sit on the front steps of the old Victorian-style house in downtown Los Angeles, drinking homemade margaritas and watching the daylight drain away to dusk. Shelby slaps a mosquito away fr

Liking in "The Scarlet Letter"

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like the dome of an immense lamp like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide

For My Sons, a Poem

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In time, I will forgethow he said "smooshie" for "smoothie"and "eyebrowns" for "eyebrows,"how his upper lip dimpled when he laughedin that uproarious, wild toddler way.How he wheedled to be wrapped and rocked,after a bath, even at age five,his long calves uncovered by…

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.

Memories

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I stomped up the steps clearing my shoes of snow. I was wearing my Rooskie fur hat with the ear flaps, and I kept it on when I went inside.

They're All Bleepin' Poets, Jack

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Occasionally I will pick up a quarterly— As a budding poet, to do what I oughterly, And peruse the pages for helpful examples That I can crib or use as samples.

Blues Repeat

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don't look at me honey, I fell on the table, my hair is on fire, my heart is unstable

Fa La La La La

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

Natural Histories I

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I feel about the universe/ as Abrahamics are supposed/ to feel about their Yahweh, /their God, and their Allah:/ I am in fear, I am in awe, /I am in love.

The Need To Tell Somebody

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He just had to tell somebody. Anybody. So he called up his publisher, L., who agreed to meet him at Oliveira’s for a drink. It only took about ten minutes to walk there from his big duplex in the Elmwood, where he was still living with his wife among

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

A Life Lived In Outline

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He began life as we all do, an almost indeterminate blob. Ultrasound sonar plotting his outline on screen. The echo chambers of his beating heart dispelling the ectoplasmic impression of mere ghostly existence. His rudimentary …

The Hour of the Wolf

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Beneath an opal moon, the open field and wilderness across it look immersed in varying shades of blue. A strong night howler blows across a little girl's face as she walks the field as if in a trance; her whole visage framed against the backdrop of this very act …

Five Million Yen: Chapter 8

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He finished the omelet and started in on the short stack. He drowned the cakes in syrup. -Never can have enough syrup.

Just the Facts

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skin cancer walks along Zuma beach at noon

Bow Ties & Brooklyn Dressing

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collars of obedience / discarded in the pyre / with draft cards and bras

Shutter

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Background foreground life in the middle

West Side of the Tracks

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The bus heads west on Route 36, toward the next stop – Howell, New Jersey. After driving ten minutes, and after crossing the tracks, the bus gets a flat.

Ring, Ring, Ring

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If this is trouble, please call someone else.

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!”

Luz Maria

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Although badly educated, and although the Michoacána fought to deny it, she held the complex notion that borders are not abrupt lines, simple artifacts of geography and cartography.

Lessons Learned

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What was so bad about other religions that their followers were automatically condemned to eternal damnation? The priests were so convincing when they claimed Christ was the only true way.