Most read stories

The road is nothing but a blind beggar banging a tin cup against the sun's piled up with snow front door

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alright, alright but not so much of a friendly little cigar-chomping companion-like a friendly ghost! That sweeping hair of longed for sleeping only awaits you once you've drowned too …

Here Comes The Pope!

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In the words of that great philosopher Hunter S. Thompson, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Fucking the Dairy Queen

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I first saw her about a year after I moved back, when I went to Dairy Queen. I know. Dairy Queen!? Ever since I was a kid, I have had a love for the dipped cones. When I used to visit my father on weekends, we would always stop at Dairy Queen on the way back to…

Suite

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but most times/ it’s just improvisation// with phrases of unknown origin/ swirling in my head

What It Is Like

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They read poetry to each other. They met at the local drugstore, after he spotted Tropic of Cancer jutting from her bag. He asked her if she’s finished it. “Nothing like Fifty Shades of Grey,” he said. They laughed. He said: “Come to our book club later.

Prelude to Pain

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Grayson Warren is living the American Dream: a 15-year career as a city cop, a great wife and two kids. And then one day his dream turns into a nightmare.

Swimming Lessons

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We spend our days on the beach, working on our tans. My pale wife hides under a big floppy hat. The water is crystal clear.

WikiGreen (a semi-found poem)

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Green is the color of emeralds, jade, and growing grass. In the continuum of colors of visible light it is located between yellow and blue. Green is the color mostShades of green desireIn the Category: Shades of green Green politics meet…

Eighth Wonder of Mississippi?

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Lula’s fried chicken should be served on the hem of Jesus’s robe rather than out of a styrofoam box. It’s so good that I kept glancing at the little tray on the steam table, hoping to be hungry again, ready to yank pieces out of the grasp of strangers, to

On Being Choked

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I was sitting at my desk at work and couldn't figure out why it felt like a person with a very weak grip was trying to strangle me. Then, I realized I was wearing a scarf.

Urgencies

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...it was moving toward me from an oblique angle somewhere behind, steadily, relentlessly.

Charlie's Travels

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Charlie Hancock missed the bus. Started walking.

Icehouse

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It was noon and cloudless when I pulled over next to the icehouse, wedged in the X formed by two dirt roads.

A political parable

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One of these days we aren’t going to believe whatever they tell us.

My Heroes Now Are Robots

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I understand why Warhol said/ “I want to be a machine.”/ Forget this sorry clay.

Screaming Woman - Excerpt

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Bree was mean as a bag of snakes and had done laid out most of the eligible bachelors in Culloden County at one time or another to the tune that at this point no man who’d heard of her wanted much truck with her.

Psychics or Ouija Boards - Who Ya Gonna Call?

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Madame B would come once a week and tell me things that I needed to know in exchange for some free items. She would come and grasp my hand while telling me the same thing week after week. Madame B always told me to relax and things would eventually come.

The Budweiser Sign and the Ghosts of Saturday Night

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It waited and witnessed the seasons complete a grouping and form a year. Then it watched them do it again. Winter, spring, summer, fall. It watched from the inside of course. But it could see. Big sliding glass doors and long and wide windows stayed the course also, way…

My Cousin & I

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My cousin and I walked around the village at night. It was beginning to rain, but we walked on. She had a jacket. I didn’t because of course. She said: “Sometimes I just want to know if he’s settling or he’s really in love with me.”

In search of reification

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For want of a word...

Tattooed Thumb

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A tattoo of a river steamboat, one you dreamed up in your sleep and drew yourself is anchored around your nail bed on your thumb. I paint my nails with regatta sails. The toxic fumes sting my nose. You say you're bored and take out a needle filling it with ink. I watch as…

Query

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time timed times time

Stephanie and the Scientists

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The research facility is located at the bottom of a steep and jagged valley, far away from Heaven, and the anguished eye of The Almighty.

A Quiet Noise

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the sun is quiet like the mountains, the birds except for their wings

Pain

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My pain is a black pearl hidden in a clean shell.

The Actual Poets

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And here’s a picture of you at the end of the line to the great toilet of fiction, waiting to relieve yourself, quick before the poetry gets to you. Or worse, the actual poets.

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

Abuse and Hyperbole

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I beat that dog with an open hand, clenching him between my thighs.

raging bull guy

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I’d made that shot a thou­sand men­tal times, and when it counted, I missed. It hap­pens.

My Single Mother

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Like the willow she stands alone, swaying.