Most read stories

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…

Disappointed Dust

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The particles of dust didn't want to be looked at

A Love Letter To The Glasgow Transport System

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Skulk like a lovespun spider in a record store corner on the orange formica subway car

Edward Ogle the Dickinson

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Hope is the thing playing checkers

Wonkie Eye

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The bad optical, crossed or dead or lazy or stray

When Deer Attack

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Carla woke up from her hospital bed screaming. "Somebody please help me. Please save me. I am begging you."

I didn't ask for help

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I didn't ask for help

The Incident

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There are some I don’t recognize. My gaze lingers for a second. It’s bad business this.

A Man More Like Your Mother

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Does he pack you a lunch when you're running late for work? Even when you're not running late? Does he insist on regular medical check-ups, for which he'll pay because you don't have insurance? Will he disapprove of your objectionable behavior, and not turn the…

Sunny And 78

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Tombstone is a tongue of stone in the mouth of the desert. The desert is a living entity. It speaks. It speaks with a tongue of stone. It says: Tombstone.

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…

Playing for Keeps

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I woke like an animal / breeding thoughts like flies

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.

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.

Seasons of You

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Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall, the Good Lord made them all.

Unintentional Hermits/ Animal Cities- The Helper

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So this was how it started. The next day Kia returned to sit with him a bit and the next day and the day after that until the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Eventually she found out his name was Saul, that he had no 'proper' job, was o

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.

(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…

Counterproductive

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A fat kid running; the sounds of an ice-cream truck —counterproductive.

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.…

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

For all we know, we'll never meet again...

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Jillian speeds across the stone wall, the hem of her dress flaps violently behind her. Sometimes she stands with her back fully erect letting perpetual motion guide her down a bend with her sun blonde locks brightening the dreary sky, or she lurches her

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.

The Master of the Air

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He thought of it as magic, but magic that he understood, the way a magician knows about the hidden compartments in his hat and trunks.

Violet Hour

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“My name is Violet,” I add. I am trying to stop lying. Going without cigarettes has been easier.

Inheritance

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I blame you for my short temper when I go off the handle when my blood runs cold and I can't think straight I can only react. When I say things I don't mean Even if I do. But I am glad for the fire you started inside of me. That time I…

The Zone of Forgotten Things

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In the zone of forgotten things, everything moves through a weak gravitational field

Grand Finale

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Adam hitched his dinosaur to a covered wagon. He drove the Virgin Mary to the Faire. Shiva rode behind them in a silver limousine combing out his long and flowing hair.

Stroke One, Stroke Two, Stroke Three

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On Monday, May 7, 2018, at the age of 67, I had a stroke.

Cause of Death

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“You sure?” He nods. “Maybe it was pneuomonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” Flash of a smile, sobbing laughter, like an abandoned seal.