Most read stories

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…

Where is Home?

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We are both 53 and this is the first time I’ve gotten past a third date with anyone from Match. Seth is different. I’m not sure why. My therapist said, “Well, maybe you’ll be good for each other. You both have to accept that you are recovering, or in reco

2011

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This year, 2011, you bring about my thirtieth year. I'm apprehensive about this, but mainly because my father made me watch "Logan's Run" as a kid...

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

"Daddy, Can You Find the Cheerios?"

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Why, these were the young hands that I kissed only last night.

Snark

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His Danger Pistol was out of bullets, his Bag of Tricks was empty, and he wasted his last can of Antimatter back at the lab. All he had was his Charm and his wits. Charm wouldn't last forever, and he'd always come up a little short in the wits department.

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.

Never End a Story with "And then he Awakes"

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Leaning toward Joshua, Stuart says softly, “Take it easy, okay? We’ll bury him. He shouldn’t be left here, in your kitchen.” Joshua glares. “Don’t you fucking move him.”

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.

The Fat Girl

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She never leaves her desk, but food appears like magic.

Perdita in pieces

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Perdita's confusing profusion of parts makes it impossible to know which way up she goes.She flutters beneath the camera's shuttered stare, …

Vanishing Vapors with Mister Van Gogh

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These clouds are what I havewith me. Their language is minebut it is drying today aswe speak. I catch the darkeningsparks, but that's not to beyour concern. I am sure youshall go on. What I wantis to deliver your song. Idoubt it is for anybody else.Clouds are good at…

One in the Numberless Series of Requiems

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We perform our chosen duty— naming/ beauties and atrocities within

Spirit Voices Saying Yes

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some are cameras, some are daggers, some are sauces pans, others are swords, and some will run off and others will burn a hole into the spot which they land.

The 6 Rules of Shoes

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4. If you wear size 13, you'll trip a lot.

Quintet in a Natural Key

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I like the cool and dark beneath my rock./ It protects me from the glare and scorch/ of noonday sun and the chilling shadows/ of midnight moon.

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…

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 memories lived in the house

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each act of creation is a jolt of expectation

Continuing Sundown

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He gave her everything she hoped for, with the exception of two things.

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…

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

Santos

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Further down a small group of men lolled near a doorway.

The Metaphysics of Cake

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Can we ever truly know reality? I don’t think so. But fly in comfort my friend. Lean back and enjoy the thrust of those engines.

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

skull of a sheep

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You are in a car speeding through Dublin towards the West year after year the journey uncoils past the same landmarks Kilmainham Jail strapped to a chair bullet to the brain on by the Rowntree Mackintosh factory where the black and yellow and orange and r

Landmarks

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

Vacuum City

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What chaos comes from / insufficiency? What else can calcify dreams?

Yet More from The Chronicles of His Demise

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The Muse//has used/ me up

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.