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.

Chalky goes to night school and studies the Classics

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I don’t even want to think about Aethra shtupping Posiden and Aegeus

The Form of a Cyclist

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His legs were pedaling hard and his heart was beating fast, He's got his scars; He can't outrun his past, Down the hill he goes, wind whipped his hair, a new style with each draft. He broke his brakes long ago; He cut the cable and ripped off the pads. He cried…

Allergic Reaction

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On his way to his first fishing expedition in the Bay Area, the man remembered the rustle and shimmer of the willows by the muddied Jemez River in New Mexico, cold beer, the clean camaraderie of childhood friends. He walked along a path choked with greenery to the San Pablo…

The Buddhist

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She is not centered, but she finds her way.

The Whole Deal with the 'Willamette's Weak-Links'

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[My baloney has a first name: it's Oh, Ess, Cee, Ay -- shit! I forget the rest! Can we start over?]

Wireless

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It seems that back in 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm came to this town

Not Quite There Yet

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You're not late yet, but if you don't move now, you will be. You close the cover of your mac book, don't even finish the sentence you were working on or close down the file. What had been of the utmost importance, clutching at your…

The Rumble Strip

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But, The Driver talked about speed. Something about pulling her off easy or we’ll blow our tires. “No telling what’s off that shoulder,” he’d say.

Into the Mystic

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Writing opens doors to perception. For example, the glockenspiel smells of gardenias, but the catwalk is opening a can of Franklin stove. It emits fumes of fairyland and olive. And in the green and pleasant country of Scotland and England, vintage trains go…

Boswell Meets The Subterrans

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He bounds like a lunar explorer into the Edinburgh Castle, the goofy porcelain busts glaring at him with contempt.

Frozen Out

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It's a funny thing, watching a Snowman shiver

John of God, Painted by Murillo

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NO ONE CAN BE A BASTARD FOREVER

Ghost Story

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They come to wipe themselves from my memory, but that, of course, is impossible. In this place, we are bound together, the long line of men who have killed me, and I.

My First Horror Show

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I remember screaming and wanting to run from the living room that time you came home drunk.

Trot fast, my dapple gray!

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It was night. It was Massachusetts. It was an interview in a snowstorm that Detective Vivian Diaz wished would go away.

Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Milk

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Charley calls to say he hasn't heard from me. The blinds are gone, so I take a lipstick off the living room table and draw a circle around his head. I make a half-circle for his gut, a squiggle for the telephone cord. He can come over, he says, just to …

Mating for Life

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Mari thinks that's all fine and fucking dandy.

Marion

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Gibson Park, underneath the grove of trees beside the soccer field. She's buried. But don't say anything yet. Her disappearance will make the news shortly, but it hasn't yet.

Red and Blue Lines of the German Painter, Otto Dix

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They can’t help Seeing a child even there In the crude brushstrokes. They say it is me.

Steven 33

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Steven 33 started small, made it big then opted out. All the great pillars of the world’s economic construction do that. Steven 33 saw an opening, then sold the idea just before yesterday dawned. His first fortune grew from fear.

Alice in Hell: 13 slithy variations

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1. Having made Alice from one of the Mad Hatter's ribs, Humpty Dumpty told her she could do anything, except speak. “How bothersome!” she said.2. In the church, Alice was horrified to be presented with a talking lamb. “EAT ME!” it bleated and, as the…

Virgo

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I said he was cold. I said I like cold.

Returning

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YOU cross the park as the evening gathers, the playground is deserted, streetlights spark up orange beyond the trees that veil the main road. You feel your journey pushing at your back, the last scraps of the energy of a train hammering north. At the far edge of…

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.

Go Running Up That Hill

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Better move ‘cause I hear them comin’ up the other side.

Deviance

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I tried to enlighten them. For my trouble, they tried to have me deprogrammed. I condemned their narrowness of mind; they pitied me my naiveté. I ridiculed their religious bourgeois complacency, but they really didn’t know what I was talking about.

Drummer Boy

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A door slams. The vibrations rattle through the floor, up his legs and into his chest. He can hear the yells, and the tears that mar her voice. Rat-ta-tatRat-ta-tat A door slams. Eyes closed while images of a life he will never live flicker on…

New White Blouses

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always thought you'd show up with a good friendly grin, your heart full of gnosis and the rest of you dressed in denim or terrene hues,back from across the world to honor our sacrosanct thing maybe it would be in the wind chiseled afternoon,or the dusk by tables…

Three haikoos

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Spring Squirrel Spring is here now A dead squirrel in the road Regrettably not Seasonal Surprise Inside warm spring rain Coiled up like Jack in the Box Resides a snow storm Bad Vibrations telephone shouting an…