Most read stories

FWA (Fiction Writers Anonymous)

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Sebastian and Janice had been a natural match. They sought to deny this at first because a recovery assistance program was not a place to forge intimate relationships. It worked out wonderfully in Hollywood, but Hollywood, as everyone knew, was just a facade. So…

Assiduity Twenty One

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Blue skies greet us as we exit the forest . . .

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.

Parsing We

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An excellent plan. Just like old times.

Sensation

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She could see him doing these things but she could not hear him.

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

As the Wine Keeps Flowing

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My blood has turned to flour I've been in Babylon too long My heart was singed by fire But it's drowning in my song We raised a prayer to Mary We had to take our share We took our places in the ferry But we didn't pay the fare And we don't know…

A New Chapter to Song of Solomon: A Poem

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My beloved lets me crawl into bed and put my feet on him since his skin is warm and hot like a fire roaring from within his soft flesh.

Need food for family

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The young man pulls out his wallet, grabs a couple of bills and stops short of handing them to the bedraggled man. “So how do I know you’re not going to go out and buy some crack with this money?”

Sorry, Charlie

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Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

One Day We Grow Wings

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Cicadas shed their skin as they grow, leaving crisp hollowed out remains on tree trunks, fence posts, and the undersides of upturned leaves. Tommy and I would collect them in the early morning and stick them to our clothes like brooches. I used to like Tommy,…

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

The Wind Is Going To Take You

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Before the railroad tracks are blown off by the wind, the wall tiles morph to trace 34th Streetwhile a silver balloon emerges from the end of the tunnel. A child’s hand reaches out for the gleam and she, the woman in a black-dress with a mandarin collar,

Bunking off

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He looked like a black paper doorway pasted onto a painting of summer.

Wings

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He knows I talk to angels, what he would call angels. I don’t talk to him.

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

The Listener

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They think because you are a writer you are not much of a listener and so you begin to recognize all of the great opportunities to be much more of a listener and then you shut your trap and get sucked into the whorls of her big wet brown eyes with Italianate…

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…

It's Part of the Plan

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...and on the eighth day

There's a Pube in My Coffee

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Connor didn't bother to wait in the line of busy professionals, opting to cut in front of the sign that announced "Line Forms At Other End."

The Washing of the Quilts

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Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 23

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After the Tokyo experience, Frank and Michiko decided that when she went on extended tours, Frank would accompany her.

Noises

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Another noise, softer than the first: swish, thud. You are still. The house is very loud tonight.

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…

Illinois Route 3

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If this road could answer I would ask her what it is like to follow the path of the rippleshimmery river for too many miles through the slowly ghosting towns and the corncovered landscapes of the dying Midwest

Convenience Store

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I’m casing the place; my boyfriend Jimmy is about to bust in and rob the store.

Silent Night

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The church of the self.

The Fact of the Matter

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Jeanne and I were married for eight years. I never knew her.

Peanut Time

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A peanut, who knoweth

Helpless

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She stiffens and blusters and roars Not like a storm, Not like a lion. Like a badger, caught in the steel jaws of a trap.