Most read stories

Bedtime Stories

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I want to read a story that ends unhappily ever after: one where the bad guy wins and no one gets the girl.

Un Americano

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His eyes are wide then narrow and brown. Hers are gray then they look away, toward the back door where a delivery driver has walked in, carrying a tray. Nothing is going to happen today.

Buy Me Some Peanuts

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The voice on the other end mumbles, not forming words, but I understand: I am to be the starting third baseman for the Detroit Tigers.

Sheep

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Sheep are very philosophical, I hear. Stop this hopeless dreaming.

Begonia {part six}

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Mezereon’s giant dragon heart marveled at the girl’s revelations. First, he was heartsick for her and the sad state of things back where she had come to him from. Secondly, he was aghast to learn she was a princess; for even dragons know and respect r

EXAMINATION

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I had the idea while I was in the county jail. I would get jail glasses; I wouldn’t be me; I’d be some other person. I could pretend that it was someone else rotting away in that 8x12 cell.

Take Back the Night

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A woman who is, say, a culinary arts champion or an heiress devoted to literature such as Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman) or Peggy Guggenheim might be able to turn me on, turn me out, turn me around.

In Real Time

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We are the same shits/ we were in the Bronze Age

The Application of Birds

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I know someone in need of healing.

Hunting Season

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A mundane endeavor depicted as a quest. Try it, you'll like it!

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…

Prologue (excerpt from a novel)

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The clip-clopping of footsteps now echoes from the opposite end of the alleyway, and as you turn to face the figure who appears behind you, the figure wearing a fierce Noh-drama mask, you determine that this time you will enlist its aid in decoding this r

in defense of assholes

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No excerpt for you.

What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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In his heyday, Burt Reynolds owned $100,000 worth of custom-made toupees.

Blue Baby

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they taught art

From "One of: A Family Miscellany"

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" History ...is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

A Bad Year

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It's been a bad year, People dying. Some too close to home, Some too far away. I cry down to you, In your casket, and think you might sit up. You were not sick You went in just a moment, Looking stunning and alive. Not…

And so, like a kind of molting

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So for now, let the snow fall, but let it fall gently, each flake as a soft piano note

Reprisal

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Reprisal The bomb blew away hubris, shocked the arrogant bastards into humiliated silence. None of them had experienced hunger and they'd misjudged its effect. In the lobby of the palace, dirt, plaster, glass shifted, rumbled,…

Paris Love Songs: Nos. 5 & 6

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Aucune idée

Hometown News: Newsprint Jesus (part 2)

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If Don’s story was one of faith carrying someone through his trials, the story of Randy Slafter is another. It was faith that brought him and his family to Johnstown 15 years ago. The wings of faith protected him from the dark angels of grief and tragedy

Escaped Poems

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Sometimes my poems escape. They crawl out through my Wi-Fi connection, I suspect.

Fine, she said

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A rope is cleaner, he explains with a straight face. He's calmed by the visual.

Across US Sullen Teens Dump Family for Olive Garden

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"That zit on your forehead just won't go away, will it, sweetie?" she adds as she brushes her daughter's bangs downward.

Frothing At the Fountain

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When I came back from California the second time, in the summer of 1965, I was the first around our town to wear my hair long, influenced by the Beatles. And I bought a bunch of blue caps that everyone in our gang wore, with the number “69” sown on

Poem in A Dead Language Only I Understand, Translated for You

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I used to be a poet, you know. / Better, in many respects, than you.

three gretchens

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The story of a second, a stone, and an android -- all curiously interrelated and all, coincidentally, named Gretchen

Fairy Tale

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Ey’, it’s where I followed him down

So Twinkle Made Lemonade

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“Just how many different animals try to hide their nakedness?” “Only one. And that'd be us, idiot.”, Twinkle responded. “Then, why don't we mind sometimes showing our bodies?”, she then asked. Twinkle could see it was going to be another…

You May Be

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beautiful, but you don't own beauty. You may be sexy, but you don't own desire. You may be smart, but you don't own wisdom. You may be good and kind, but you don't own love. You may like trees, but you don't own the forest. You may like to…