Most read stories

Monsters Happen

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Dee startled awake from the dream, sat up in bed and looked around the room. The dream came back--hazy, yet clearer by the second. Dee had been warning the girl in her dream that he was a monster; that she shouldn't talk to him, should stay far away from him. …

Basement Concert

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You don't just hear the sound, you are the sound, you and everyone else in the room.

Love Verse

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A gentle man, and a fierce woman, charmed one another in a shaded gazebo.

Penultimate Vampirekiller for 2026

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". . . Stinkin' vampires, death to all of ’em, them and their plague-festerin' rats. But the new ones, I don’t mind takin’ ’em down before gettin’ rid of ’em. —But you’ll never get that smell off o’ you if you use only one condom, I’m here to tell you . .

The Magic Trumpet

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I gave my trumpet case to a girl named Sophie; she liked the velvet inside.She still played with dolls;they would live there,in the dark away from the world.Safe. I was a terrible trumpeter;i missed the high notes in band, squawked like a chicken.I strapped the trumpeton my…

Lost Among the Consonants

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I'm writing our initials in black sharpie on the tunnel wall. There's already people who have come before me, hundreds of pairs of Qs and As and hearts in the middle, through a small hole in the brick I can hear the French accents, spinning through, a reminder that I am…

Monogamy

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cummings starts to sniff, his usual routine. He feigns aloofness while raising one wolfy leg to pee on Eliot's sneakers.

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.…

Loch Traignarry Light

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The Traignarry Light Preservation Society meets monthly, and welcomes visitors.

My Hillbilly's Got a Hole In It

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My hillbilly’s got a hole in it And I think I’m gonna die I swear you can see right through him Got a big hole in his side I think I pulled the trigger On the truth gun at my side Then it just got bigger It started getting wide He tried

The Birds

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It had been over three months since he’d left his home and started to walk. He’d kept a journal to begin with, but his book soon ran out of batteries. It was that sort of thing that had irked Neil at the start, but now he’d just let it slide down his back

Cats

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and you imagine euthanizing them if what she says is true, that she is leaving them to you in her will.

Landmarks

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Play somethin’ solemn, they told me, or somethin’ that sounds like home or the mountains in summer.

Complex

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He sees the dogs through the window, his babies, sleeping on opposite ends of the couch. His girl, lying supine, hind legs spread, grotesquely, almost comically, as far as they can without being flush with the cushion. His boy, Cosmo, face down, the power…

Heavyweight

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That afternoon, after I'd swallowed that weight. Felt like a sinker, one of those weights that fishermen attach to their line to make sure the line goes down far enough. Go down far enough there, and I'll find it. That's what I was on about, that I had…

At the Jr. Algonquin Roundtable

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“He didn’t finish ‘The Witchcraft of Salem Village,’” Scooter says, tattling on his little brother. I’m projecting him to be a first-round draft pick by the National Security Agency in about ten years.

3 Poems and a Seething Pen

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it’s more about how all those words look around each other. he’s more interested in the shape of things, than the reality....

Nanny

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I remember the days when my brother and I would walk down Tillman Square, careful to avoid the cracks zigzagging along the ground. Well I did. My brother made a point to step on every one.

The Late, Late Show

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Camilla and I watched a movie, then we were the movie. A man wandered in a decrepit house, or in a dream of a house, which had wallpaper hanging like shredded flesh and little mounds of filth and a madwoman with a butcher knife creeping from room to room with fear or…

Sphynx Clara

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A brick from the parapet splat down later as I was applying a bitter healing powder, made from the seeds of watermelons, to my raw tongue.

I wear my square sunglasses

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square mannequin-wives who can’t look in their eyes

Sorry

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...society has tampered with its denotation so much that it is almost incomprehensible without context.

Star-eater; a poem

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Star-eaterHere lies the star-eater.Tilting on the ancient wheelof summer-glaze-breath,you speak the oceans. Fire's the mealfor you, the star-eater. You defy death,and out of your mouth, a universe openspouring forth, as fleet as the starslight on your tongue. Space…

Excelsior - A Poem in 9 Parts (post 2 of 5)

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II. ByCoalport Your hair streams minarets across a bridge, The…

Real Life

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Just like real life before poundsigns.

Noir vs. Noir

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You're sitting in a darkened theatre with Gothic ceilings and one exit watching the latest Alan Ladd film with William Bendix and Veronica Lake.

True Stories About False Dancers

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The world is a mighty funny place. It spins wildly and we are held down by its strong ghostly gravity. We're still able to communicate with one another over morning coffee and delicious cake donuts dipped in chocolate. Some of us used to keep…

My Cyber Companion

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Jannsun started working for Matrix back when he gave up on writing the next great American Novel, which was about five years ago, right after the war. He was old for a Web Zone designer but who knew? Who cared? His work was all done via satellite and as l

Every Headache

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It’s possible that you’re dying. Every headache a brain tumor, your friend once said. You laughed then. Now you begin to see what he meant.

visionary

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let it lie