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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…

A Requiem For The Heavyweights

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Breathe a stench of Eton musk...

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #13

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It worked for a short time and their next album, "The Hirsute Agenda" became an underdog success.

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.

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.5 - c.3

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It was unusual, a feeling of déjà vu waft in the air. However, this was completely new to them. Mayumi gripped her shoulders as Emi’s lips moved trying to ease her fear. Mayumi did not understand what this stuff was.

You'll Never Get Anything Accomplished on an Empty Stomach

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The Star Trek marathon ends, and he flips channels. An episode of Full House is on. The cheesy plot lines and attractive women (specifically, DJ Tanner in the late seasons) have become a freakish comfort. In today's episode, the Tanners are baby sitt

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.

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.”

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 20

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The Gropers of Prague were there, all around us, in spirit if not in fact. Was it KGB? Was it a ghost from my past? Or my own hand? Stop guessing. It was Einstein himself. The KGB had taken him into custody somehow, though by what authority? All the

Love's Hinterlands

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Sit down at night and stare into the fire. Consider if Cupid is just another liar.

19.

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They made posters and hung them everywhere. With the passing days she became the photograph at its center: hair always in the same ponytail; always with the same smile

I Once Knew a Sparkledrop

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

Unspoken

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I'm waiting for your voice. My trembling hand is so damp the phone could slip from my fragile grasp at any moment. Each ring burns in my ear and makes the washing machine in my stomach tumble faster and faster. After three rings, or it could be four, or forty, I hear…

Unsent

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this is where we end -- the exorbitant eye of forgotten days.

To Zephyrus

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

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.5 - c.4

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Sora and Ciel stood before Dean Morden inside his office. It felt weird to the girls looking at him sitting behind Madam Mayweather’s desk

Folk Music Returns to Roots, But Some Try to Keep Them Buried

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“Sandy likes the way Bob spanks, when he’s done she gives him thanks."

The Gallery of Wounds

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The blood is memorable/ as is the copper taste of that/ momentary certainty of lockjaw.

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 …

Inside Out

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Who hasn’t at some point of the day wanted to dredge up everything in your pocket just to see what it is.

tiny thoughts

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what if I die?

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.

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, …

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.

underwater with their thumbs

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And your daughter, Mrs. P, and your daughter Mrs. Q, underwater, underwater in the old swimming hole, in the backyard swimming pool. “They’ve all got children there.” La la. Yet when I’m naked, when I enter with my own body the mirror, the small sha

stung

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Lust

Swords of Rome

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Rome and Carthage wage war as Hannibal crosses the Alps and invades Italy. With him, he brings an army of barbarian hordes hellbent on reducing Rome to ash. For one young Roman soldier, Gaius, he is trapped between his loyalties to the republic, and to hi

The Sound Of...

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What if Everything I have been doing Hasn’t been heard By anyone?

Elevator to the Angels

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