Most read stories

Have You Seen Me?

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It’s as she reaches into the fridge for the carton of half-and-half with the grainy waxy photo of the little girl—Last Seen 10/2/06—that the memory surfaces: “Hey. That’s mine.”

Sinking to the beat

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I'd wear my pajamas too, fitting for the big sleep

Still Dancing b/w Smokey Conversation

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an engine stalls out in the parking lot the driver tears her skirt coming through the door

In my day...

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In my day, you could buy a polythene bag of cigarette butts for 5p. And everyone had a proper haircut.In my day, plumbers gave free vasectomies whilst reciting patriotic poems. And all the buses were red.In my day, there was always more than enough sex to go round, with…

Bunker

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Dressed as an English professor on Halloween I escape the red devil and run downtown. I go to the Art Car hangar I dance, I swing my golden brown briefcase

Table Talk

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Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl.

No Word for Enchantment

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fanned lashes on rouged cheek a glamorous sea creature in violet perfume

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…

tiny thoughts

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what if I die?

Saturday TV with Dad

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By the sixth - Dizz, Falstaff buzzed - Croons - The Wabash Cannonball

Blue Moon

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I suppose it was inevitable, This crashing of souls, This recognition of possibility to create. If we were younger, We would make a baby, The ultimate act of faith. Now it has to be something else, Nothing to force a track with night feedings, …

Global Arms - 3

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She continued to cooperate with a city council agenda dominated by globalized privatization

Elevator to the Angels

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I opened the closet door and there stood Eugène Ionesco lost among our clothes.

I Once Knew a Sparkledrop

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"And then I, and I believe, I alone, saw this small child run..."

Invoking Fire

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We talk of his time in the jungle.

A Straw Grasp

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My wife, Sheila, inadvertently clicked my e-mail address, too, when she sent her reply back to him and I read her poet friend's message that her love opened the window of his heart and she replied that his words were knocks that opened the door to her being, then I stood…

To Zephyrus

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

My Uncle's Last Day in Hospice

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In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …

Go Wild

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Sometimes you have to go wild; you have just to go fucking nuts. You do.

Building Houses Out of Words

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I remember sitting there on the first unfinished rooftop, watching you building houses out of words. You hammered in grammar and punctuation; you said these things needed to be hammered in by hand. You drove the long straight exclamation …

Vanishing Point

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the two become one where/ all things end,

Straight to Jimbo

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...coming into that bone yard, you just hang a right, go on past La Fontaine, and take a left a bit further on. Jimbo's right up in there.

This Cowgirl's Lament

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A tornado and peacock were bred in his paddock; the couple gave birth to a turquoise lasso.

The Rocket

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Mother told me that I would go to the moon. But she did not tell me that on Diwali night, the moon hid himself on the other side of the sky.

1935 What I Wanted

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embarrassment

Pleasure (it was) after all...

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I'm gonna write about this after...It'll either be a tale of pain or pleasure hopefully the latterI don't understand how this workswhy sometimes I want to hide from myself other times I can just give in, fully,and everything isohsoheightenedI want it to be beautifuland…

Breaking Point

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I can do the hot coals, no problem. Or, your love, eyes closed. Or your sneer, spank, suffering, resentment, rejection.

How To Laugh and Be Happy When Not Drinking

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That is the question, not to be or not to be Life, death, whether to be, all that is superfluous in the face of laughter and how to achieve it under extraordinary circumstances like not drinking anymore I’m afraid not all the alcoh

Bag

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No chance for Hallo, we sank into an unlit station doorway and he fumbled through my shorts.

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…