Most read stories

The Island

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My muscles ached but I was awake. That night I didn’t sleep as soon as my body wanted to. I stared at the picture facing me, knowing the young man her father had been was behind it. I kept thinking of his eyes looking out, at the old man who eventu

What's Done, What's Left to Do

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When she was just a little bit younger, Dana wanted to be known around town as something other than the girl who used up all the machines at the laundromat with her little brothers' Spiderman underwear and her grandpa's pants soiled with God-knows-what. Something…

In A Lightning Storm, Sheep Run Through Barbed Wire

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I used to fear things. The lonesome wind come through the clapboards. Dry hillsides rustling. My own skin in the summer heat. Rattlers. Lurking. Abandoned coal pits. Pa said I was afraid of desolation. I didn't know what he meant by that. How can you be…

A Story with Tahini in It

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"What do you mean..."

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…

The Blue Jay

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His mother hated blue jays, hated them with a passion she usually reserved for no-count trash who drank beer on their front steps and worked on their cars in the street.

Kitty

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One winter day, walking home from work because his old Honda Civic refused to start out of sheer laziness, Martin found the cat in the alley behind his apartment building. It was terribly thin, with a swollen belly. It twirled around his legs, pleading with big…

Trip the Rime

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politics only add to assault and distract

Carry On

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But God could tell that Adam was still not/ right with His world, alone as he was. Alone/ is fine for a Maker of Worlds but facsimiles/ are so much less than the Original.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 9

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The Third Defenestration happened during the Soviet era, by the apparatchiks. The only thing that saved the people from certain death after being thrown out of the window of the Prague Castle, was an enormous pile of horse shit below, or haufen mist, as t

elms

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it's about dead trees

~blackbird~

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^ through a busted window in this desert…

The Inspector Pays a Visit

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I'm not generally a believer. But I do sense things. I see things.

Universal

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For the sake of convenience, we must assume that everything ugly is evil. Lightning rejuvenates. Sulfur preserves. The obvious solution is dismemberment. The ghost appears to Ludwig; “How can you destroy my creation?”

Where We Come From

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Where We Come From (ver. 2.0) (Leadwood, Missouri pop. 1,200) I Matt lit a joint here driving beneath the arms of dying trees The moon shone through in jigsaw puzzles that we could never quite figure out Gravel crackled like leaves in fire …

Thanks, Target!

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A tanka poem inspired by the 40 million debit card numbers stolen from Target stores since Black Friday last month.

Chapter 1

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“The King,” he paused, pursed his lips, looked across the crowd of eager and fearful citizens of Ki, “is dead!”

There They Are! Here They Come!

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“Help us, help us,” the children are saying. “They’ll come back. Help us. They bite.”

before hell freezes over completely

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I remember how silk felt against skin, dressed in my damn flimsy things, while the cold bit my nipples. How I would lie in your arms when I was young, after being awakened from my pubescent slumber. (Enough of that!) In a rush to grow up for good, holdi

No Prada, No Burberry, No Gaston Lauvert

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Although it was unlikely that she would witness mobsters racing up or down Wabash Avenue with guns ablast, she paced behind the hotel's ground-floor glass eyeing traffic for fifteen or twenty minutes . . .

The Truth Of Jello

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Franz Kafka opens the refrigerator And removes a bowl of jello With the face of Bella Abzug in it

Man On The Run

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Don't slow down, he said, time grows shorter every minute. So you pretended to stay young or cheated on your marriage or forgot to watch your children growing up, and still never found someone who could understand you.

A Walk Among Pigeons

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A Walk Among Pigeons I know these pigeons. They were beggars in another life. I may have been among them once, but then I fell in love, and when that ended, my spirit floated free. And I became, though somewhat battered and b

Bus Ride Through SF

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Bud Light, B. O. and Freeloader Heaven, they step onto the back of the bus without a cent We pass by the Karma Wash but no one gets off the bus We pass by the Endless Soup and Salad Kitchen where we witness a crowd swarming over a ch

Poetry Whores

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Something’s been eating at my craw. I’m just going to go ahead and spill it all out. You ever hear about Poetry Whores? Well, let me tell you a little about them, because if I don’t, then who will? I’m not going to name names. You can pretty much guess

Ish

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The feline apotheosis of Ish - Shroedinger’s cat.

The Duplicate

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For weeks they used every medium to say: This day will be an end or a beginning.

Sitting On a Powder Keg - song

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I just sit here thinking You’re cheating on me again It’s how you acted last time The same as it’s ever been Don’t wanna go ballistic What’s inside your head? Why don’t you just tell me Who’s been sleeping in that bed

Measures

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Pascal would let something slip now and then. He was sharp and spoke excellent English, with a beautiful Spanish accent. He corrected speech among the guys, but he exercised his lessons in grammar with an eloquence that fascinated all of us, not letting a

Long Division

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This energy said, "Fuck it, I am going to be the fucking sun." In it’s language it sounded more like "Khershhhhhhh Hhhhhhhhhhh Zirshhhhhhh."