Most read stories

How Zin Prepares for Early Winter While Saint Bernards Cause Major Traffic Jams along East Houston

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She sings off-key while her married lover shadow-boxes his one-dimensional and split-off selves.

Wheatfield with Cypresses. van Gogh

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There's no sky like that with twisting clouds shot up into by cypress trees that are so like dark green flames leaping out of the earth as if a dark green oily pool were on fire underground, and this was all that could escape, was its essence.

forgiveness

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she sees that no one has considered her needsshe feels left out, and so she strikes outon the offensive, nostrils flaringpoints her finger and makes her caseshe has been wronged, justified in her angershe will not back downthe accused one is hurtstrikes back with her own…

Post-apocalyptic Fable # 8

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Crouching like little children in a game of hide & seek, we entered the old house, slowly

Action she feels as folly, I respond

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Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships.

Canvas

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The artist with fork and trowel. The paint; soil, seed, seedling or plug.

MARTIAL LAW - LOCK DOWN IN PARADISE

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Six just left to drive 8 hours thru the jungle. They’ll emerge in a year in military guerilla uniforms. One guy threw up getting in. A friend writes, “I started a Free Mike Todaro Campaign. Hope to raise a couple of hundred dollars. We will, of co

OldSchool

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The gated community of Dos was named for one of Babbage’s landmark educational figures, Ms. Dos.

Sailor's Visa

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He's got a rager for Casablanca, the old Bogart and Bergman classic. I can't snap him out of it.

Osmotic potential

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Guttering semiotics, The jeremiads of delirium; Drinking lukewarm tea over a late candle Like Hamlet in a power-cut; Affecting his own audience of himself, Hastening soliloquies through gritted sophisms, Withered and spun to intentional…

A Slick Story

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After Slick Daddy — aka Billy Ray Thompson — gave up driving his log truck and took up with playing and singing the blues full-time he was what you might call a hot property around the juke joints along Highway 61. The women didn't seem to mind…

Snapshots

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“Do you have a job? Are you going back to school,” I asked, you know, because I’m hip like that.

Sunday in Dogpatch, circa 1990

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Inspired by the photographic work of Susan Lipper. Grapevine series, 1988-92. http://susanlipper.com/gv_23.html

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.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 13

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Tuesday morning while Frank was in Dr. Jawarski’s office, Michiko was sitting in the waiting room of a gynecologist’s office.

twelve tines

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till the tiny death may we remain true, me and you, to our flesh and blood and sinew, the springs and silver in our tiny hearts with vicious teeth and a hard bone need to fuck

House Next Door

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It all began with me. I was first and for many years, the only.

The Mission of Dimitri Kastratitov

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A nuclear-plant fuel rod engineer, Dimitri Kastrotov, had an axe to grind, so invented an atomic deterrent, to counterbalance mankind. He targeted the filthy rich, greedy sons of a bitch, breeding war, weapons and nukes at a reckless fever pitch After …

The Script Sucks But the Special Effects Are Killer

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Victor didn't want to be alone, so he phoned Sophie.

Dear Earth, On the Occasion of Your 40th Earth Day Birthday

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Everyone is tromping around in work boots like an army of happy gardeners. The park is smiling from all this attention, from the sound of kids who think work is play. It's not even sunny but we don't mind. I know you don't. Grey days are just as good. They've…

Before Language

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Living in the dark ages without language, I think I’ve been dead long enough. You can come out of the vast fields of night. Come out of the vast galactic storm without light. The darkened dreams that speed past with their false and brightly lit

Whip Poor Will

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Save your delirium...

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 …

Pura Vida

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The girl lifts my head, and I sit up straight once again. She hands me a pair of old work gloves, helps put them on my swollen hands. She wipes my face with a wet, warm towel. Her thin arms tremble. She cries. I cry.

What He Delivered

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Wonkie Eye

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The bad optical, crossed or dead or lazy or stray

(Withheld) 1970

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The Moon The hatch of the lunar module hissed as it opened, a few puffs of leftover water vapor escaped toward them in a sparkling white cloud that rapidly dissolved…

Born Lucky

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He's gonna find he wasn't born lucky after all, his propaganda has got up on the wrong side of the bed and sidled onto the couch.

End of the Cloud

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Somewhere between the bleating of sheep And the laying of eggs Comes the licking of frosting And the eating of the cake We’re not young enough To know everything anymore And you may think there’s no rush But I know this There’s a limit t

The Writing Class

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I ask if anyone has a poem or a story they would like to read. Everybody's hand shoots up.