Most read stories

Composition: 3 generations and a porch

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It is 1939...

The Adversary

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When He had built the Universe, there was no greater joy in putting it together. The angels themselves were perfect constructs of concept and design, embodiment of breathing principle over particle waves. They each had their purpose; each mortar or a supp

Ghost Town

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She had just done it in the backseat with the man she decided would be her father. Or maybe it was the cast of his eyes under the dim bar lights. Maybe she insisted that this had to be done, to relive the night under the stars, under a dented roof of a station…

What I Saw in Mexico

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"I wanted to see cities whose names sounded like sad sighs...Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Reynosa, Camargo..."

zygomatics

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i saw a sign and it read A PERSON THAT IS MEAN TO THE WAITER IS A MEAN PERSON i thought of you with your high cheekbones, the sense of entitlement unparalleled, the superiority complex that hid much you had a gig and it had probably…

To an Overly Helpful Husband of Advanced Age

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in which a man who is bored with years of retirement poses a threat to himself and others

To Zephyrus

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In a field of barley, I see you, ...

Old Friends Getting Older

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I just amuse myself by buying old guns and refurbishing them in my basement as I listen to old Bohemian polkas on cassettes.

The Best Kisses

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So I told her think of it this way: you’re my unlived life.

The Awakening

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Aura arrives with the incense and her mysteries. Her scent of wet earth, and crushed flowers, a touch of Jasmine and Frankincense. Her dark hands passing over my body, her warmth. A whisper. A prayer.

Study in Contrast

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But tonight while your finger glides across the glossy pages of Popular Science I hold a séance for the Holy Spirit in utter seriousness among the book clutter and crumpled manifestos in the basement

Assiduity Seven

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Uzma dashes up the stairs ahead of me . . .

If Blake had only known

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Everything is bound to change like / a damsel to the tracks.

77 Words Sparked by Insomnia

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Mice dreams are a reality ...

Abyss

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When Lois finally found him down there, Johnny was wedged between a large rock and the trunk of an old, long since fallen, cottonwood tree. She said as she got to him, she heard his gurgling breath, fighting fiercely to stay alive. When she saw the deep, gathering, red…

annah la Javanese. Gauguin

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Her feet are raised upon an embroidered green pillow and she sits naked in a blue velvet chair. Red earrings dangling from her ears, while a red monkey sits at her feet with one leg extended. She is exotic. A powder blue on her lips and at her navel,

After the Flood

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That TV you got me? Ruined. And the ionizer fan? Ruined too. All your clothes you left over here, all my work scrubs and weekend dresses too, soaked with that river stink water. I kept thinking bout all the dead creatures.

Noodle

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Our painter man was killed by a bunch of snotty kids who were making fun of him. A gun went off. What is a noodle to do? He wasn't sitting alone in his world, anymore. Where was his famous straw hat? His trusty pipe? He desperately needed to smoke…

Melons

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A baseball bat a large pipe a hammer and axe

Chancing the Moonglow

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It's become sort of a habit now when Elsie's husband is away on business two or three times a month that we take the afternoon off and drive nine miles across the river to Marginalia, Arkansas and the Moonglow Motel with its red, neon vacancy sign and although to some, two…

the heart would have unnatural reverence

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The heart would have unnatural reverence, exalted, bursting with evil, rolling in sloth, if it did not at once reveal its innocence. I saw you again, on the morning of the sun. It was you, or your double, or a son you might have had. Your beautiful bloo

Laughing All The Way To The 2020 Election

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After President Trump was elected, my first impulse was to spend the next four years cowering under the bed, whimpering.While I knew that I needed to keep track of what our new commander in chief was up to, watching the news made me too angry and too sad and just too…

Secrets; Opening to "Woolgathering"

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Some of us, however, turn our secrets over in our souls, churning them with the fury of the howling winds of a January night. They are eroded and shaped and fine-tuned with the precision of a jeweler; the deeper and darker they are, the more brilliant of

Losing It

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The following is a true story, or rather it is a true experience from the story of my life. Some say that just because something happens doesn't really make it "true".

On Women

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She was prepared

Bookstore Reading, Telegraph Ave, Berkeley

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There’s someone in the audience who is immolating himself Cutting his own leg over and over with a pen knife And groaning: “Oh God, oh God” And all I can think from up at the podium is This guy must absolutely hate these poems I am reading

Another Way

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If there was another way to describe emptiness, I'd word the endlessness of the sky, of the ocean at low tide.

391 Costume & personal appearance

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I can’t deny you’re beautiful, though it’s unsure how many of your defects are fudged by my myopia.

Voyeur

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He and she are fucking while I watch. She's moaning deep desire and he's pounding flesh into flesh. I'm fully clothed, eyes attune to their fornication, studying. He comes inside of her; their bodies stiffen and then wriggle against one another. …

Love Story

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You are a warm winter Despite the presence of snow