Most read stories

The Sound of Human Lives

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The room smelled of an old rank basement. Boys and girls of all ages crowded the stage. The room was dark with only a few lights that hung from above keeping the crowd dark and silhouetting Chris on drums.

By Derangement of All Our Senses

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We will collapse in a storm of images

Hands Like White Porcelain

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Jesus is for sale. But he’s heavy.

Mr. Kunitz, Mr. Lowell, Mrs. Craig

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Although I think we can easily work it out because we are not here in the Yale graduate school, and diction is the theme of the story. Diction is a choice in language.

Outside Thunder Pallets

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Carl’s peculiarity of toilet paper rolls is not covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act – he’s looked it up.

Enough, Trump

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Enough, Trump. We've had it my dear, with your pink ties, your hairs, your swagger, your towers, your money, tempers, walls, bombs, smarts, snarls, pouts and doubts, bigotty bile, and once again, style. We just…

Dog Years

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Already my back aches

Canyon In The Clouds

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It was two days to town. His horse could only go one.

Confession

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Tomorrow, they'd bury their daughter . . . and still, so many questions. Why would a beautiful fourteen-year-old choose for herself such a horrible, painful death? In life, she appeared the antithesis of suicidal ideation: excellent grades, well-liked in school and…

Walking Coma / Resurrection Happens

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It’s possible to forgive the past its trespasses / stop seeing the future as a threat, reimagine / the present as a goal.

Redbeard the Communist Pirate

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True facts about Redbeard the communist pirate.

The Dock

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Row, Caps of white, A salted escape beneath reflected light. Brother, remember those old lies? I’m off to sea to make those things right, now.

In Your Dreams

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What did it mean? What would a psychologist say? Oh, who cares. In my opinion, we ask why, what, when, where, and how too often.

Axes

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You think about the first time you saw an axe

Three in a Major Key

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One can watch the grass green/ in response. One can watch the world green/ in response.

Winter in Waveland

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They build them high they do in Waveland, Mississippi.The tall houses with their skinny thighs spread wide flirting with the dusky coast, like antebellum ladies petticoats lifted, stockings wetted, ankles bared, savingtheir hems from the unpredictable tide,…

Heirloom Pendant of an Ash-Tracked Snow

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If I do not hear you leaving by the door... The nearness here of this yet questions when I know you will not come so back again, Nowise the same as you were there before. My own reflection, centred at its core On knowing each …

Sand Dollars

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“Life is on life’s terms,” she told me once. Her arm, wrapped in clear cellophane, was freshly adorned with a green-pigmented sand-dollar: a living shell.

Seascape

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1. Walking here with you on these narrow strands of clean air & imagination

Leather and Something Like Infidelity

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Part of me feels like a wounded animal surrounded by hungry cougars. Another part of me feels like being mauled by a cougar might not be that bad. A third part of me wishes he could punch the second part of me in the face.

When to Say Pussy

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I have hired a relationship consultant. He helps me through conversations with my wife.

Full Frame

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A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

Prophetstown

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The elders of the town will tell you that as soon the prophet mill arrived everything went to Hell. Before the process was streamlined, prophets used to be grown organically in the community. They popped up only where the ground was tilled and a prayer was planted. They…

Far As You Want

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At a rest stop in Montpelier, they stopped to buy Cokes and gum from the vending machines. He was showing off, trying to jimmy one of the locks with a safety pin but it stayed locked and she laughed at him and he said goddamn, look at all a them Milkyways

Unconscious Primate Pandemic Panic

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I wrap my left foot

City Streak

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the little crummy salon that churned out little fat women with pinked curly hair

People Who Go to Poems for Truth

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People Who Go to Poems for Truth

My Latest Failure

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Jason, the obnoxious host, thrusts his microphone against my nose.

The Widow Teasdale and the Ineffable Warmth of Personal Services

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Her cash. It smelled like seven-dollar-a-quart gardenia perfume and cave aged cheese—like hope overgrown with mildew.

The Mix Tape

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I made her a mix tape. It was revolutionary. Twenty-two songs she had to hear at least once in her life. I even drew some trippy drug-like designs on the label of the CD to make it seem more real. It was the ocean and the sun and every body of land balled up…