Most read stories

Bright Red

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They shoveled coal into the furnace of the city so the ghosts would be warm for their haunting.

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.

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.

Politics

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These days, you seem to disappear like bread tasted and devoured

The House on El Nino Diablo Court, Part 2

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Inspired by "The Dunwich Horror"" by H.P. Lovecraft, this excerpt concerns the events in the life of a man who is coming to the awareness that his son has followed in his grandfather's steps and begun the process of conjuring a spirit that killed him.

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…

My eHarmony Profile

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I’m up to my ass in social media.

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.

Lassitude

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It's morning, and the cold black hull of branches sets my resting pier, Amid this drizzle, underneath the poignant pain of birches, wrecked By floods of midyear grieving; wraithlike, Dawn's been becked To paint in shafts of faded rose that shades the fen…

Violet Hour

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

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

His First and Only: A Love Story for Halloween

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It was the woman, Mary Lou Compton, that he cared about. They would've been happily married by now if Bryce hadn't killed his Uncle Ned.

Edward Ogle the Dickinson

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Hope is the thing playing checkers

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.

Dark Cave, No Candle

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Writing books is like raising children. You do your best, nurture them, discipline them, coddle them, feed them, patch up their injuries, sing to them, try to sell them, but no matter what you do, they are what they are.

My Daughter On Wolf Hill Farm

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I survived as a brave thought,

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.

The Invention of a Curse Word

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I saw his face

The Incident

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

Midwestern Charm

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He slathered the glue on my scalp and talked non-stop about Harlem. Electrodes or nodes, I never asked which, would measure something inside my head. I doubt they actually did though, measure anything. I've had the pleasure of having wires glued to my skull before and have…

by the sound of it

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cicadas run our furnace

Happy Christmas to my quantum mechanic-

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this elegant silver wrench/ which from the opposite side/ becomes a golden Phillips-head

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

Open Face

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All the time I'm eating I can't help but think of the many different tuna melts I have ordered in diners and coffee shops and how each of them disappointed me...

Hey, Boys, Bandits!

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I remember one time that summer I was with you (1964) going to a bar in maybe it was Melrose Park, or Northlake, or somewhere along Roosevelt Road closer to Chicago, not as far as Cicero though. I went there with a crazy gear-head named Roger Hudson, wh

You Have No Idea

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“I want you to face the toys!”

The Hostage

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My mother should have been a minister or a peace officer. Instead, she was a homemaker who ran the home like an agency. There were certain hard and fast rules.

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."

13 cyborg poets

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1. Lost in the Vision Matrix, J0hn Clare transmitted a distress signal designed to be audible only to himself.2. T S El10t ran on a complex algorithm that produced seemingly fragmentary results. However, if you run Imagewise an underlying order appears.3. C0ler1dge suffered…

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…