Most read stories

2011 - What I Wanted

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I might have gotten laid

MOURNING FLOWERS

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The gardens of Babylonare empty again.Kings and queens came back to the ancient desertto rise their childrenin the wise wilderness.But you can still heartheir hidin' laughingrunning throughthe mourning flowers.

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.

maybe, in winter

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I will wrap up in quilts that still smell of summer sun

Paulie in Albuquerque

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Savvy as a nine-year-old playing poker with high rollers in Las Vegas, that was Paulie. She'd finally thrown Dick Weasel out the night before, but that morning Diana'd shot down their plan of sharing the house in a “man-free”…

From The Plague Year 2020

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I went to Costco

Smackdown

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you escape by finding the bubbles

Members of the Story

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Pinesatz is standing again. He and Marie seem unaware of time, unaware that Louane is watching them, unaware of waiting for Wendy with the car. Every glance is a hook. Every gleam is a glance. Every stanza is a room. She vies for it.

From a Street-Lit Dark Room

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Whenever trees or limbs fell in isolate forests—well, no narrators were ever to be found, not even beneath the larger tree trunks or under the fallen limbs.

A Broken Frame

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The photograph has no date,but these are my long-ago kin,ancestors just before the boat,six stone-faced on the English shore,sepia on cardstock under glassstill clear in severe, dark clothesexcept one who has been markedout, maybe with black wax,which runs to the bottom…

Fats

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It began the night my parents took my brother and I to see The Vikings at the drive-in and the trailer for The Girl Can't Help It came on the screen, introduced by the completely acceptable Tom Ewell, which the folks could swallow, he was one of them, but as soon as…

Fargo

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“What does it feel like to run, Thomas?” I yelled across the field. Thomas was so fast. I would never catch up to him. Even if I could run. He was so fast. …

Koo, The Queen of Nowhere

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Koo ate the sad, bitter pills just so she wouldn’t have to try and make small talk about La Donna’s deformed, retarded kid.

Poem for the betraying Lover and his new Love

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Wishing he holds you all night, unshaven chin/between your breasts.

The Woman Who Loved Water

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I hear the woman upstairs running water. But that's incorrect. I should say the woman upstairs is running from water. She loves water. And water loves her. She loves cooking and doing dishes but especially running water. She runs water all day doing dishes, doing laundry…

THE BOATMAN OF THE BADLANDS

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A 20-footer up on skids sky-blue paint beneath the bondo

Chest Bump Bass Detroit

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son a superfly/alligator shoe clad/networking man/working a beeper and flip phone/twisting blueberry spliffs/on ma's porch

He's Sarcastic

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I got kicked out of a soup and salad place last week for trying to buy a large soda so I could sit and eat my sack lunch there while I read “Love’s Desperate Creatures” by Dorothy Danville. Have you read it? Its great. I’ll give it to you when I’m done

Grounded

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No temporary solace upon this patch of earth, stymied in your injury; labored by your girth.

The Story

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He pronounced the Afrikaans word with the vowel sound like the vowel in dour. It meant box, but it also meant cunt.

A Saturday Prize-fight in Cannington

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Lovell saw his chance, and more quickly than anyone thought possible delivered a sharp blow to Linehan's hitherto untouched jaw. The Irishman collapsed, and stayed down for the full count of thirty. The courtyard was then filled with shouts of incredulit

Baby Teak

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Baby Teak can access Wikipedia by rubbing two xylophone mallets together.

Excerpt from Fantasy Novel - Work in Progress (1st draft)

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From Faud POV 2 or 3...... Faud ......... The stillness and the silence inside the chamber had grown imperceptibly hypnotic, and the first indication that anything was imminent was a click on the outside of the double door that stood in for a starter's pistol…

There Was a G.I. - January 1970

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was beaten in the back of the brig.

raging bull guy

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

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!”

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 16

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Depression had Frank in its craw.

Ceremony

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It was possible, she realized, to hope through hopelessness.

Apathy

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There are several people I do not care for much at all—annoying cretins, blasé philistines, or godawful narcissuses—and I do not care much for caring about such people when I encounter them, which unfortunately happens quite often like some cruel lottery where I…

Stop

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The dead girl was his niece’s daughter. Only thirteen years old.