Most read stories

Lullaby for a Dragon Baby (for Josephina TuTu Waring)

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Lullaby for a dragon baby who breaks the bough with bottled fists escapes the armored cradle stealing swords from terra cotta men to slash the Ming canopy and loose the butterflies that will free Ho Chi Minh from the fire.

A Sight Worth Keeping in View

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. . . I wanted to put Tiffany out of her misery and mine and shove her in front of the next large vehicle hurtling down the drive-through lane . . . .

Home Security

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They might think that loneliness has made me gullible, more than willing to open for them all kinds of drawers.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

The Lioness For Real

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you happen to me like motorcycle tricks

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 . . .

Betsy

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Lester walked back into the house. He was hungry but didn’t know what he wanted to eat. Really, he couldn’t remember how to fix anything he wanted. He walked over to turn on the television, but couldn’t find the on/off button. Surely the damn thing had an

Goody Two-Shoes

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She locked herself in the bathroom on our wedding night. That was my first clue that I had made a mistake.

Losses

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Each day, I lose more words-/ nouns and verbs- but especially// proper names. People and places

Third Shift

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Some great, doubtless precious; some hollow, likely empty; some only shards, but you never know...

On an Iceberg of Words

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She cut me adrift On an iceberg of words And words melt As you know Looks like we may have Gone out on the limb A little too far without A toe-hold on Reality Doesn’t it? But I saw the headlines: Cows Bound for Slaughterhouse Make

The Palace of Nansi

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It's advertised as a romance. The poster shows a Sudanese woman with a child at her side collecting gum from Acacia trees.

If Only it Were So

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In the moment I crinkle the aluminum foil, The sandwich now a deeper Part of me

Two

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i am two / one part me / another part them

Another, Another, Another

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It’s just another Day where I feel tired, but I Don’t know why it’s so.

leave the dog, take the cannoli

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he who laughs last is probably a dumbass fuck

In Real Life

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I’m starting to feel more interested in my savings account.

Swan Song of the Pareto Optimalists

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I nearly burst out laughing when I heard myself telling him in my accented English that she’d confided in me that she was preparing to sacrifice herself as part of an elaborate snuff film produced by a band of psychotic artists hell-bent on making up for

Every Time It Happens

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Every time it happens, I think of Amber Heard and how hard you can be slapped without a bruise forming.

The Conversion

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She became suited to herself only. She no longer tried in any way to fit, she fought the molds they created and kept moving in her own direction. Often forward, sometimes a bit backward, and she rightly scaled her own Mt. Olympus and there she sat with he

Freakuccino

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The bus was almost empty, just me and an Asian girl who'd cleaned up some since I'd seen her. She was wearing a too-big T-shirt that said Freakuccino and writing in a notebook. If she remembered me she didn't say so I didn't either. Everybody sheds some…

a walk on the moon

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I know I used to say I’d rather walk on the moon with my own rapacity. And you can easily say things like that, given the luxuriance of youth. But it was a lie, if you want to know the truth. That is only so much hot balloon air, puffed up in the chest,

WHO'S RICH?

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she flips you a smile and a white plastic menu, and all the blood in your head, and upper body rushes to your crouch, and god-all- mighty, space aliens from the planet Vanna White could be landing in their unnumbered hoards in the parking lot, and all

Matchbox Car

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Clatters and clatters ensued, and the splash destroyed all denial.

Moving Up

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Sometimes I had the time right, and sometimes the place; that day, they came together.

Excelsior - A Poem in 9 Parts (post 3 of 5)

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IV. From Hoover Dam The intent of passive presence wreathes an endless ring, Invisible, beyond all thoughts and change to sickness. This hour beats sibylline as vacancy, breathing Through mouths that do not taste their nothingness. I do not know where you are;…

Suicide Consulting Hotline

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We exist to facilitate/ successful conclusions of hopeless lives.

Hal and Estelle

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They had both discovered, though, that when people stared at them now, away from the carnival, it was very different. There, they were supposed to be odd, it was what people expected. Here, they were supposed to fit in.

A Dutiful Daughter

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The first indication I had of what I look like came when a man put me back on the rack, remarking that I was too pink. Over the weeks that followed, I gained a few more ideas about my appearance from the comments of people in the shop. My photographic side had been…

Actually I Train Woodpeckers for Al-Qaeda

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Now that Spring has sprung I am reminded about the day a former neighbour complained about my squirrel collection. I love to feed the black squirrels that gather in my yard and she became convinced I had trained several ninja squirrels to enter her garden