Most read stories

Norm Bladdon, Private G.I.

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I'd had a long, hard fall from the pinnacle of the profession. I made the mistake of accepting a mouse pad, coffee mug and a fleece pullover with the logo of Upchux, an anti-reflux drug, on the left breast where you'd get heartburn.

Nocturnal Bypass

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As I fall to the ground I realize that in a few moments I will be experiencing a new kind of pain. The last pain. The last pain I will ever feel.

Is This Seat Taken?

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A single woman should regard every train ride as an opportunity, I once read in one of those “How to Find A Boyfriend” books. “When boarding the train, don't take the first available seat,“ the author advised. “Walk through all the cars…

The Bowery Scene (Memoir, 1981; edited by Charlotte Curtis)

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It is easy to look out on the Bowery and say, "There are the bums." Encountering one, however, even one who asks to "bum a quarter" or tells you he's "on the bum" the word "bum" slips away in one's mind...

Dream Boats

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The Inauguration Day Windstorm had blown out half the downtown lights to celebrate its twenty-first birthday. Two old friends flecked with gray snow and white hair sat on the boulders that kept the Sound from sweeping away Myrtle Edwards Park. Look at all the…

Last Night

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If they are all speaking medicine & I / start speaking French - how / rude am I? Would they understand then / what it is to be entirely left out / of the conversation, unseen?

Sleeping Apes and Washing Dishes: What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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Eat blueberries every day and you'll live to be a 92 year old mogul. Really.

Because we cannot know

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Because we cannot know, we keep walking, keep getting up each morning, feeding the cat, drinking coffee. Because we cannot know I'm drinking coffee that morning in Thailand, not on the beach but just off, because there is only one spot where you can get real coffee,…

The Bludgeoning of a Burgeoning Young Artist

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There was an implicit understanding, made clear by Athena's gentle stroking of Freddy's silky blond hair, that he would share her canopy bed with its frilly fuchsia pillows. He didn't mind this, despite despising the color of the pillows.

Aftermath

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Oh sweet, sweet morning light

To Whom It May Concern:

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Now, we can argue about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but there is no doubt that it takes eight spritzes of Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, three spritzes of Lime-Away, and then a 30 second spray of Oust to incapacitat

In Search of Vince’s Quinces

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Beautiful, he thinks, as he taps the ash of his cigarette over the balcony, but this is not good enough.

Mankind vs. The Undertaker

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Her boyfriend is into U.S. presidents and professional wrestling. He is reading biographies of both occupations and says this helps him to appreciate gray area, decisive action. Lives of great men, he explains.

Mind-Body Split

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The mirror can never talk back/ unless corrupted creases of the brain/ and its recombinant physical maladies// elect to answer...

Lullaby

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I never meant to shipwreck you, I didn't even know I was singing out loud. I just stood on my rock a little too boldly, and hummed a tune you wanted to hear.

Secure

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This is the Minuteman tine/ of the three-tined fork// we can stick into the modern world/ when it’s done-- a MAD triad.

The Mujahideen

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Eighteen-year-old Svetlana Kabalevsky was now the widow of the poet Dmetri Kabalevsky, soon to be another widow-whore on the Moscow highway.

How to Cheer Up a Sad Song

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It's one of the most difficult problems of aesthetic philosophy: What do we mean when we say that a song is sad? None of the big names--Aristotle, Kant, Croce–Benedetto, not Jim–come close to answering it.

Existential Dioramas

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and, under foot,// dark caves waiting/ with their unseen pigments/ adorning forgotten walls.

Rope & Bone '86

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His shirts he hangs on the back of the chair, one on top the other so they won't wrinkle.

Centuries of Falling

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I am falling, falling out of my body, falling like midnight onto mice.

When Bad Things Happen To Other People

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Years ago, I was involved in a freakish tragedy so startling and heartbreaking that it made the front page of not only my local newspaper, but “People” and “The National Enquirer.” I'm not going to tell you anything about it. This means that…

Prologue - On the Lips of Children

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Their tongues were dry, her milk was gone, and the last bit of water in the plastic jug had evaporated.

Split second

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When people talk about the end moments when one's life flashes before his or her eyes, they often refer to time as slowing down. I can attest to this phenomenon during my final moments, before the collision: the song playing on the radio, the squeal of tires and flash of…

Any migration is forced

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I’m not / going to change you I /promise

Deus Ex Machina

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He rolls in unbidden across the stubble fields / Old acquaintance astride a newly booming cloud/ Under sky an alien shade of strawberries whipped/ Her watch stops ticking out the rest of her/ scheduled breathing poses

Shadowland

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His touch, even now, seemed to set off tremors inside her.

The Cosmos as Gerunds

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There is no there or where but rather/ trajectories of probability

In The Place Between - Part 2

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One day a girl with blond hair was walking along the fence on the other side. There were just a handful of us left and I was the only one to notice her. I watched her. She did not see me. The next time I saw her, I went to the fence. I thought she might y

Building This Thing and That Wall

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The world has long since been bootlegged by madmen. The new invisible con men are the same as the old visible con men, hiding and lying behind their walls of lingering death. There's a weapon wielding demon hell bent on an insane vengeance crawling around…