Most read stories

The Dog's Familiar

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The county sent two crews, one to get Mr. Meyers, the old shut-in, tall and affable, but quiet and bent, like a crooked coat rack with a porkpie atop, the other for his dog, an english setter whom he shadowed like a familiar. I say he was the familiar and

Woman in a Film Running to Save Her Love

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If she does not get to him in time, / all is lost.

Exquisite Now

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In the exquisite now, I feel everything around me, in me, before and after, I think, I should call you, say goodnight, but I do not, choose instead to write this poem, as though I can capture the magic of what is happening between us in words, A…

The Humanists

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“She’s very sick. She’s dying,” and he smoothed my hair along my neck. “It’s leukemia. A very rare type,” his hand reached my shoulder and stopped there. “She only has a few months.”

Je Suis Vincent

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I saw Vincent one day, sitting at a café table that was situated right next to the quays of the Seine, with another artist by the name of Bernard. Vincent had his back to me, and he was leaning forward in his usual hyper-excitement, gesturing wildly

Laidlaw

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There were too many laws but not enough of the kinds she wanted. She wished for the right to go shopping. Then taste rather than disposable income or access to finance could distinguish people.

Aluminum Canoe

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"Don't stab me with that," says John.

15 Restatements

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I arrange 15 restatements of how lovely you are forward then backward, horizontally then vertically then along the diagonals.

Sold 2 Books Though

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Reading at Menlo Park Senior Center, old people falling asleep leaning to the left in their chairs, all in the same direction.

1940 What I Wanted

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But this ache wouldn't leave me.

Dear Friend

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Dear Friend: As a visitor to Wonderland in the past, you are truly among our most treasured friends. It is the enthusiasm for whimsy such as yours that spurs us to continue to provide perplexing chaos for which we are so widely esteemed, the better to

Taking Leave

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A walled city doesn’t let you out any more easily that it has let you in earlier.

The Hunger of the Waxing Moon

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I took advantage of a free period this afternoon to nap. When I awoke, I tasted blood. My tongue was swollen. I checked myself in the mirror and saw twin punctures on my lower lip with pinpricks of blood on each. I winked at my reflection and lifted my li

Bad Ideas I've Had

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Not all ideas are bad, just mine.

The Other Side of the Wall

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I’m glad they put the wall up. When it gets a little humid around here, I can smell those damn people.

Helen Says (from FATHER MUST)

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Masking. Helen says not to think of it as covering or disguising or concealing. Helen says to understand it is not to take it as something put up front and over like a mask. Helen says it’s not like that...

Not Enough Sin To Go Around

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Inevitability: it's what's for dinner.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 43

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—Have you ever fired a gun?

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #3

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It was a dire and dun-colored year when groupies wept and autograph seekers put down their pens.

Dry Tuna

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"If you don't like it then leave!" Sally screamed.

“Yo Donnie, Hawyadoon?”

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“Fine, Tony, fine. I'm brilliant . How many times have I got to tell you my name is Donald now. All the time you're with that disgusting, “Donnie,” a grammar school name. Get some class. You own the matzo factory now. You're not just another…

55 words #5

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"...,beautiful, yet neutral, an oversimplistic reading of the people we meet."

The Young Woman Swimming

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She stepped inlike ice alonecould save hershe dived,slicing the wavewith her body her fresh pony tailsubmergedlike a silk scarfthen swam moving thewater awaylike whirlpoolscould hold her buoyantly save her from the headachewhispering wordsThey had been there all…

Hollywood Forever

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Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone crack open an Old Bushmill’s and offer John Huston a pull.

Flash Before Your Eyes

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It was the dead of winter. I took my father's shotgun from his closet. He kept it wrapped up in one of those khaki-colored gun tote bags that had a zipper running the whole length of the gun. It was a 16-gauge, single action shotgun. Anyone could tell wha

Tabula Rasa

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When I was younger, I tried very hard to be myself, but it never worked. I'd close my eyes, wait a beat, open them and slowly bring them into focus. This is the new me, the only me. Never worked, not once. It could only last a minute or two, so I…

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.

Transgressions

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Once you descend, the third rail/ hums its invitation

Ferdinand Gets Married

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You have the right to be happy

The Sentence

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Two women are escorted to the desert, where they are shackled to the ground. Who are they, what have the done, and will they survive?