Most read stories

Bardo

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In the quiet dark, fathers reappear.

My Daughter On Wolf Hill Farm

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I survived as a brave thought,

The Legend of Knifemouth’s Legendary Mouth Grows

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In the small towns of central and southern Illinois there lives a very indecent sort of man.

Duration and Frequency

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for spirits and demons have no life/ but what imagination gives

Ode to an Afro (or Going Natural in a Corporate World)

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In praise of the colorful flock with crowns of teased cotton candy rising high above Modular walls, stalled operating systems staling coffee and pale corner offices

hands

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He cleaned off the pump with a steel brush. Then he took it out to the pressure washer. Out there was where a lady that looked like a witch used to move around and sit on the fences like a crow. The air was humid, and the men were dressed in heavy blue coveralls.…

YMCA

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absolute bullshit

Come Monday

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“Have the cousins arrived?”

ROAD TRIP

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to visit an old friend

Pigs Fly

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You are rounded just the way the mountain is, out the window. The sun sets on both of you now. Three of you, I should say: the mountain, and you, and little Frank, who is currently batting my ear because he doesn't want to be named Frank but it's for your dead father,…

Frozen Out

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It's a funny thing, watching a Snowman shiver

Rags to Riches to Rags, 1

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1 Al Capone was ruling the backstreets and alleyways of Chicago during Prohibition, and we lived in a little house right next door to a speak-easy. I could peak through our curtains and see right into the bar next door when cops came in to get pai

ALL THOSE YEARS

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Joseph and his little brother, Kevin, were there again. Kevin was too small to understand what had happened yet. He would usually just go off, running around the statues and playing with the wreaths; the last time they'd visited he climbed a tree and broke one of the…

Destiny Knocking - 2

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. . . why did it take so long?

Project Undeath (Work in Progress)

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The moon bulges with meticulous sick amber fire while first night’s chest heaves and sputters free infantine monstrosity from plague-wormed hovels, din mold choked grottos, and stale metal-cast labyrinth catacombs.

Thank God the Sixties Are Over With! Is All I'm Saying

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I am surprised that you’re not famous already. I remember sitting in your bedroom for hours just watching you while you wrote poetry. I was in awe of you, thinking you were going to be the next Dylan Thomas! Or Bob Dylan. Or Dylan Somebody! And I rememb

What He Delivered

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Trying to remember something else, I recall supreme and utter solitude in a far off time and place

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Before the war...

Lost Among the Consonants

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I'm writing our initials in black sharpie on the tunnel wall. There's already people who have come before me, hundreds of pairs of Qs and As and hearts in the middle, through a small hole in the brick I can hear the French accents, spinning through, a reminder that I am…

Cat crunch

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I barely scraped the sleep out of my eyes when I heard the shrill crying from outside the kitchen window, and I recalled one of the many reasons cats can't be trusted. You see, they're evolutionarily wired to imitate the sound of a crying human baby, so when they…

small pleasures

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sheets, white, coarse redolent with Clorox

Deifying Gravity

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This gravity thing, I reckon, is enamored with me. It loves me so much that it has fettered me with itself.

sunburn

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I used to compare her to a sunburnthe first of the summerit is always the worst oneexposed skinalmost hot to the touchturning warm and pinkthen raw and redit is a transition that is effortlessbut still you can feel it happeninga lot like loveyou can feel it all around…

Sunday Morning Series- 5: On Divine Intervention

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What does God find abhorrent?

waves at least this tall

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the mountains did change/became looming purplish waves/their spray washes us/we rinse slow 'neath lifted waves/that must be at least this tall.

Painted

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By the time she reached home, dinner would be there in thirty minutes, on the table. Not a lively table, just politeness, and calm. There were no issues of the day that needed discussing, no problems to be solved.

The Tiger Who Jumped Over the Moon

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Lord knows we all tried to stop him from doing it. You're crazy we said. This makes you look like a lunatic. They'll hunt you down in even heavier droves now. You've upset their delicate memories. I tried to stop him. That's cow territory my friend…

His Disposition

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"Oh, God. What do we say?..."

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

Hold on

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I slept and it was pleasant. Then there was the kiss, and it was hot. Later you turned away, and all was November chill. Now there are touches, caresses and shouts, Marvelous nights flavored with favors bestowed, and blackened days,…