Most read stories

Du Fu's spring scene

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state a shambles, mountains and rivers endure./meanwhile, the city hides amidst spring's thick growth . . .

Matron

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His land lady was somehow thrilled that the Herr Doktor Professor had a visitor from the US and invited us for tea. She caught us coming in and without thinking anything, and at her persistence, I had absently accepted. My friend did not seem to want to b

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 One-Dollar Minister

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The man could be a total brute, though the truth was he had the softest of hearts too. A real gentle giant. But get him going on a drunk jag with too much ouzo in his system, and look out.

Lime Grove in the Snow

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Up ahead I saw clusters of people standing silently under the trees. They seemed to be just waiting there. More than 100 people lined up in the cold and dark, not moving.

Questions of the Tenth Month

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my loosening grip on time.

Caterpillar on a Chalkboard

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What do you want me to tell you about this next full moon cycle that you don't already intuitively seem to have touched upon in your latest bout of almost there dreams? It too will pass? That it is a totally different unfair animal from the repellent one already…

Visions of Granada (Double Sestina)

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Double SestinaOn the surrender of the Alhambra to the Christian Spaniards, while on the losing side of territorial disputes, by the speaker, the Moorish king Boabdil: and the subsequent exile of the Moors, who brought geometry, astronomy, architectural…

Spring in November

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It is dead, for a time. Sometimes we are all dead for a time. Our lives leave off, sleep under the weight of snow.

Scent of danger

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Sitting in the SUV awaiting the trooper behind us I felt a warning tingle.

The Cold Bank Ravens

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In punch drunk waiting rooms... On election routes

Crumpled

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We wanted so much to find ourselves in a beautiful world. It was, and is, but every inviting leaf has got another hidden dangerous precedent that must be surrendered to in order to survive to see another sunset with the ones you actually…

A Session With My Poetry Coach

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“Please excuse the form letter, but due to the volume of god-awful submissions that we receive, we do not have the time to crush the spirit of each writer personally.”

Antediluvian

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He hid gallons in the garage,Fifths in the basement,Pints in toilet tanks,Airline bottles were on his person at all times.But he wasn't drinking.Why would he?He'd bought the cure at an expensive CenterThat taught him YogaAnd acupunctured away his brokenness.The cure worked,…

Be Afraid

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Everything conspires to kill you:

Tracks

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When dogs run free

Rue Saint Maur, 3:14am

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The city had a way of going silent. Not a nervous silence, but a quiet silence. The sky was dark, yet everything was colored in a yellow hue cast by the arched streetlights. Buildings, parked vehicles, walls, pavement. Cars and scooters and ambulances and police cars…

Poem Written While Undergoing ECT

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A human being is here. He doesn't disappear

Museum Story Listening

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A sort of invocation of the open sky, in contradistinction to the dark of the Earth whence came the specimens, a figurative marriage of the literal darkness of exploration and the figurative light of knowledge.

Salzburg

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One night while in rehab I had a dream that I worked as a violin maker in Salzburg.

Here Comes the Sun/ There Goes the Moon

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still have the yellow rose that I did not throw into the grave.

The After-Sex Song

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After sex he would get on his old refurbished upright piano and always play that same song. We came to know it as the After-Sex Song. It was really quite lovely, and touching. I think it made us all feel better around that building. Yeah, I remember t

Read My Lips, or Simply Refer to the Subtitles

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A friend has been shopping an opera around without success. It's about Arthur Inman, a hypochondriac who hired people to talk to and, in some cases, have sex with him.

henry

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her skin was delicate, fragile, that old woman skin that appears to be translucent.the rip caused by the knife opened it up like tissue paper. blood welled for a moment, then poured out with real purpose.this was the delight he found in old ladies.. the scent of their…

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.

Before Going to a Party You Will Not Be Attending

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I planned to wear this shirt, / blue, black, and white stripes, / collar and pocket,

The Executioner

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No one knows where the wind comes from, but sure as hell it comes. The executioner glances round the reception area. Nods to himself. Function versus form. Anodyne, instantly forgettable, like hotel rooms. Perfect.

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

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Lu loved his mother, but her anxieties nagged at him like poison ivy. You can't avoid scratching it, but the more you do, the worse it gets.

The $64,000 Question

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One day over a hardscrabble dinner of gristly beef and lumpy mashed potatoes, his uncle looked up at him and said, “Kee-rist, boy, school’s gonna start any day now. And winter ain’t far behind. I can’t keep you here. We gotta figure out something for you.

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…