Most read stories

Woman at the Bar

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I saw a woman / at the bar tonight

In the Air Tonight

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But that last night in Europe, getting ready to fly out of Amsterdam back to the States, I heard this Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” which expressed some of the turmoil and confusion and whole-life hysteria I was feeling inside. Waves of fru

Fire In The Heart

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The woman leapt from the top of the burning building. The flames reddened the faces of the watching crowd. The heat pushed them back. The woman hit the ground. The crowd oooooed. If only I'd been a firewoman, I thought, with a ladder as tall as a building and a…

Slivers from the edge

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Four ships anchor Far off shore Chains slip Beneath the swell.

Wheelbarrels

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What a great feeling it was, the day I first thought about and discovered how toilets work. Nearly as exciting as the day I learned wheelbarrel is actually spelled wheelbarrow.

It's Like That

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Like the term rogue cop

Gator v. Funky Worm: Which Office Party Dance to Choose?

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It’s that time of year. The combustible mixture of booze, poinsettia corsages and the soulful sounds of Eddie Venturi and the Fastidians will cause people to get up and dance at holiday office parties who have no business doing so.

No Collar

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Eating my teeth off pulling the silk from my lips and swallowing each kerchief wholejust trying to find the priest who has his heart set on a motorcycle

As Faulkner's Birthday Nears, Mailmen Ask "What If?"

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Before he became famous Faulkner was postmaster at the University of Mississippi Substation Post Office, a fact that endears him to mailmen around the world.

Assiduity Twenty Three

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The outside world will intrude . . .

My Alice

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My story begins where so many have ended, strapped fast to a cold table, just moments from a lobotomy needle and anything resembling the man that I am.

The Stranger

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“I can't go to sleep,” Jonathan said, laying on the doctor's couch. He counted on his fingers to keep his mind active. “I'll certainly die if I do.”

BLT

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I had a sister-in-law who was a licensed nutritionist. Not sure what “licensed” means, but she had some certificate and worked in a hospital. Hospitals! Places not known for their cuisine, much less their nutrition. —So, what do you…

From The Plague Year 2020

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I went to Costco

Magnetic Soup Wagon

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We may sniff a gush of something in the rush of heat round a petrol bomb. Or reap a gift from the cracked head of a hero.

Beehive

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Like when she said the word 'but', it came out ‘bet’.

The Cure for Cancer

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Thus, more people can drown// and leave their bones

Lionheart

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It has been two days since nearly seven billion people have gained some extent of super powers and I figure it will only be one or two until they tear this planet asunder. I have had to move from my third story loft and take refuge in the basement of my apartment complex.…

EXAMINATION

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I had the idea while I was in the county jail. I would get jail glasses; I wouldn’t be me; I’d be some other person. I could pretend that it was someone else rotting away in that 8x12 cell.

Whistler's Mother

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Whistler pounded a nuanced nail, into our inferior foreheads.

The Legend of Knifemouth’s Legendary Mouth Grows

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In the small towns of central and southern Illinois there lives a very indecent sort of man.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

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Joanne Simpson sat in her pew of the church that dominated her tiny town, listening to the buzzing of disturbed voices like a hive of bees trapped in a wall. She knew exactly what was wrong. Some parishioners sat on the edge of the pews, while some whispe

Shark

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Violet goes with her mother to the home, delivering cookies to old folks. She's getting to hate how she goes along with everything her mother asks. Some of her friends are rebelling already, and Violet feels something under her skin. It's still just a dark shape, lurking…

My Stuff

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Crass, vulgar, boorish, impaired, angry, depressed, jealous, regretful.

Rule of exchange

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She seizes my hand. I resist just enough to sense her strength.

Forever KAP

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She mustn't...

Advice To A Young Poet

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Touch these words with your mind. They will create an elephant with an unidentifiable itch.

Waiting for Wanda

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And why rabbits? Rabbits never went to a slaughter house. Rabbits died in the road, run over by cars, shot by prepubescent boys or eaten by dogs but never slaughtered in mass. It didn’t make any sense, thought Art and he wanted to ask the small man i

Bog Crossing

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Written within five minutes, being a parody of the artless vacuity of observational 'poetry'(By Tedward Weeney and Seamus Spews) The large wind in the treetop tells the blackbird its own voice. The yellow grainyard resounds to the clodding of my farmer's…

The Umbrella

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