Most read stories

Love Story

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I fall in love with a second cousin at the picnic. I make sure I sit next to her.

Accident Assurance

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They found your athymic neck/clipped like a bag of Skittles/and your lifeblood left a Rorschach test on the dash/in which they saw the future/and their own exits/(straight ahead and to the right).

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.6 - c.3

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Mother’s eyes stared outward in a trance, on her throne, visualizing the world Azure made. Though it was right before her, she could not reach it.

What Keeps Us Awake

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On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…

Legs Unwilling

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Summer bakes the metal playground slide to ripples. Still, kids line up. Sadists, all of them. Lucky enough to choose pain. Max feels it every breath, unwanted.

Daily Living

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When we are given eternity, as a night is eternal

What's that on your glasses?

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The shit just doesn't want to come off.

Resource Management

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’m sure they have their/ cleverest working on it, though.

Afternoon Chores

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She is trying to quit—nasty habit this smoking. Still, this is the only time she lets herself smoke these days: Laundry day.

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

on the shore on the shore

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I await, here at Sandymount Strand / There's a stony bed and moistened sand / Couples dance away into futurity / With their dogs upon the shore

The Head

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So I've got this head in a jar and I'm not sure who it belongs to.

Worn

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The shirts hanging by the back veranda serve as our memorial to them.

You Don't Need To

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You need only one who notices.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Chapter 27: Prosperity Meteor Showers and the Human Ingenuity Tenders Lasting Economic Recovery Act

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... the CBO issued a concise and brilliant report demonstrating that the most cost-effective and permanent solution to the multiple problems presented by persistent poverty in the United States was the elimination of all those with prorated household or i

Going Back in Time: Song

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If we go back in time We are living in tents If we go back in time We are living in caves We are fighting over rivers We are fighting over fields Near the soft edges of slime If we go back in time Nothing would have us And we had t

Regret

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Regret takes the shape of little clouds ...

Hope's Amanuensis

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I was low on carburetor / oxygen and my fraud protection / had just expired.

Global Arms

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~(+)~

Five Million Yen: Chapter 40

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Ben was dreaming of sex with Claudia. But, in his dream, he could hear Dan Arris calling his name and pounding on a door. The fear of Dan Arris was pushing out the delights of Claudia.

Thanking Harry

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At a candlelit table near the back of the restaurant, Jack and Lois greeted the waiter as he delivered their drinks, a diet coke for him, and for her, a vodka and cranberry. He apologized for the slow bar service and promised to return in a moment to take their…

Myself Today

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Suddenly I'm not feeling it anymore. / Poetry has become insufficient. / I can't do it like I used to.

Napomo 17: April 25 - 30

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As air warms and warm/ winds stir, green becomes the force/ that surges the plains.

MOTHER MOUSE AND HER BRATS

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Oh, you aren't going to lecture us, for heaven's sake?

Mommy

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I miss her.

Lovelandtown Tavern

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James Hubert III sat at the bar. It was late. His wife and kids were long in bed and he knew he should be, too. But with the Lovelandtown lift bridge stuck in mid-air, a drink beckoned him. He sat next to Vince DeSantos, a small, stout man, with a bowling

Gossip

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Gossip Betty Martini divorces husbands when they least expect it. On a seeming whim, she pays a visit to dear Arnold, who keeps her papers handy in his top desk drawer. She initials here and there, signs with a…

Solution

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I wrote her a poem.She said, “I hate poetry.” I said, “OK, just read the words then."

ALL THE REPORTERS WANT WAR

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The countdown is on and daily the propaganda gets more and more aggravating It appears at times that the news media dictate and orchestrate more that just report on events of diplomatic shock. A huge effort has gone in to covering this coming war and it…