Most read stories

Notebook (excerpt)

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I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.

Next Time, Academics

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I suggested when we passed the flesh shack that we turn around and that I go in and say to the sex workers that the Russians are fetching $3.5K per hour in Manhattan and it's private, unlike there at that road-side shack.

Blank Inside

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She remembers the days when she could have purchased every card in the store and found the words to fill them all.

the genes of Edouard Manet

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was entering into a new phase of its existence, a peculiar paradigm of the wider world where, presaged by science, economic and political ideologies were conspiring to displace the old verities of religion and aesthetics, but where…

Jonestown on a Global Scale

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Picture it-/ air not clogged with the shit// that makes Beijing the dark joke/ of the developed world.

Incivility for Breakfast

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I gently honked my horn and gave her the kind of friendly neighbor wave that only friendly neighbors can give. She didn’t wave back. What the hell is her problem?

2

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Then I am in Washington DC impersonating an accountant.

A Cool Dry Place PART 1

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There are times when she is heavy and times when she is light.

Drowning By The Pool(2nd Revised Version)

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The entire room seems waiting for me like an octopus behind a closed, chained door. The monk of the lamp knows he will get his daily turn-on if he prays loudly and just enough for it. The favorite chair has my blue dent in its punched…

Gabe

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“Damn!” he said to himself, wondering for the millionth time what he was doing in such a sad line of work. Break time, he decided, grabbing his stash box and locking himself into the freezing cold bathroom to smoke a joint. He emerged thirty minutes la

Tuna

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Falling asleep remembering lies that had been built around lies Lies to impress people Lies to make life more convenient Lies, I didn’t even know why I told them.

My Mistress

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the ex now alien

Arcade

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My father owned a penny arcade. I worked for him every summer all during my youth. My job was to hand green tickets to customers who achieved a certain score on Skee-Ball or shuffleboard. The coupons could be redeemed for merchandise which we had on display on…

Goodbye Uncle Jack

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He fought off the U-boat packs in the Atlantic — one hand on the tiller, one on the torpedo launch button.

Interlude in Trader Joe's Parking Lot

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I'm pulled in by the music like a rogue wave and he has no idea I'm drowning...

Cairn

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Your cairns/ are litter in the streets

Cracked Heart Reigns in My Eyes

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Rainy eyes fall fast somewhere close to me Riding the wind like lust

The Night She Took Her Dignity Back

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She had endured three years of abuse for those hot, fleeting moments of tenderness—just enough warmth to keep her second-guessing the bitter frost. Now the ring promised a lifetime of biting back her pain.

The Roses Ask For You

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The roses ask for you when I smell them They seem to remember your touch more than others. They can’t bear it when you’re gone and wonder when you’ll be returning I am beginning to do the same I no longer go outdoors to be with them

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…

Shame On 34th Street

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This tanka poem was inspired by news report that the Macy's of "Miracle on 34th Street" fame has a white Santa in front and a black Santa in back.

rewind...

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here’s the deal… sorrow follows tears… pain later for the happiness now… is the joy something we only borrow…?

Your Dream Advisor

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Every night I say "I dream about you all the time, Nae Ann," but the truth is I don't. I dream about stupid crap at work like air filters for a 2006 Mazda RX-8 GT.

A Raisin in The Sun

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I was about sixteen or seventeen when James Miller had a stroke and died. He was a friend of my father's and a preacher-guy. The last time our church had been that full was at the barbecue the weekend after the church was built. Somehow, the structure went…

Flowing, Flown

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Flowing, Flown In the field stands a jealous man with fifteen eyes stored inside the cuffs of well-worn khaki pants. His pockets pull with clinking dimes…

tremendous thousand years' charisma

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Okay, I’ll admit it, the earth was shaken on the world's underside, when you left for California. And I sometimes slept on the shores of Lake Michigan and Fox River for your tremendous thousand years’ charisma. To say I cried out in pain would be lettin

Missed connections

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I lost my job but the government found me a new one. Now the government pays me to pretend I’m a travelling businessman. I fly around the country to imaginary meetings. It’s part of a project to make it look like the economy is doing well.

Dysplasia

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In my mind the village of 300 souls is called Nedoweska, but I confess that that's just a dreamy nickname I had for it as a boy. For various geopolitical reasons it had since become noteworthy as a historical site, though our interest was purely personal.…

On the Way To

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Robbie’s wrists itched hard, the cord was sunk in so tight his hands were bordering now on blue, now purple. Too late to matter.

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…