Most read stories

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…

My Back Hurts

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There’s a room Full of white And it smells Like bleach and Iron

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…

Everything Foreign

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In college, I made friends with my Jewish roommate. Her name was Leah and she was from Brooklyn. When she asked me home with her for Thanksgiving, she mentioned we could go to synagogue together. I asked if there would be other black people there. "No," Leah…

John of God, Painted by Murillo

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NO ONE CAN BE A BASTARD FOREVER

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.

Famus Peepul

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Famus Peepul Ellen and her boy, Larson, were on the second floor of The Monsters restaurant, searching for the fortuneteller. Larson had decided her signature was a necessary addition to his autograph book. He hadn't asked for her autograph…

Cheese

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So, my wife got fired from her job for being three minutes late five times. But he had it in for her, the fatty boss. He was lazy and she was smart, in line for his job. And she had a workman's comp case against the hospital—she'd slipped in pudding in the cafeteria…

Get a Hold of God, Will You?

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Get a Hold of God Get a hold of God, will you? I have seen a lot I saw a Great Dane licking the dew off an orange bird of paradise Get a hold of God and tell him that Get a hold of God and give him a piece of my m

Gusts

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a girl in a red cap flashes by

The Dolly Boys

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I have a fascination with Dickens and London and this was inspired by my next novel.

Tracks

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When dogs run free

Mo Band Names

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Her Majesty’s Glasses Umbilical Chord Linger Finger Okay Inkjet The Dragon Flies Horny Free Spirit Good Footnote Buttery Clams You’reUp Empty Bladder Star Butter Karmic Impulse Mr. On-the-Ve

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…

13 statements about the United States of Chimerica made by the Bird King during a press conference

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1. Jesus made the United States of Chimerica from the hide of a gator he killed with his bare hands back in the winter of '81.2. The people of the United States of Chimerica are watched over by a straight-talkin' angel with hillbilly eyes and a crown of nuclear missiles.3.…

How did you get your second Silver Star

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No one told us that the LZ was already hot and the last Combat Mobile Team had already been shot down and killed. No, no one told us that. So when we came in below about 500 feet I began to hear that "pitit" sound of AK-47 rounds going right through the f

Rapid Transit

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We’re on The Worm. I dread the part where the train goes under the bay. I hold my breath until we safely emerge.

Tumultuous Cracker

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The whole scene smells like paranoia.

Alfamadog

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It was that special ache between heart and stomach that made me stop things. That ache that cannot be caused by the mere knowledge that you have steered your life into a completely wrong direction. To feel this pain, you also need to have no clue why and how it…

Staying With Mattie

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I invited Henry to go out with me and Marge, suggesting he ask Ellen who he dated a while back and who still asked about him, but Henry shook his head “no” and said “out things” were just too boring at our ages — and besides, since his…

Elite Arts Group Names Steve Miller 1st Rock Member

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Miller exclaimed "Somebody give me a cheeseburger!"--a line from one of his hits--and members of the Academy broke out in knowing if subdued laughter.

Three Questions on Distance Running

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Do you see the hot coals of doing? The way time sizzles or wilts…eat those coals.

Lady Gaga Via Richard Cory

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Whenever Lady Gaga took the stage, We peons on the benches cheered for her: She dripped of jewels and paint, and blessed sage, Wore meat as the antithesis to fur.

What He Delivered

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My Daughter On Wolf Hill Farm

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I survived as a brave thought,

afternoons

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i think god composed afternoons with crayons

The Rider

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"The rider rode his bike in Arizona just about every day and for all the usual reasons....."

Post-apocalyptic Fable # 8

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

Carmen Scarpino, Pioneering Wise Guy, Dead at 78

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Breasts were developed after World War II, the result of improved nutrition and the additional muscle mass that “Rosie the Riveter”-types acquired through manual labor in jobs that males abandoned to join the war effort.

Lapidary

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You burnish what is left until it shines and call it your own.