Most read stories

At Last — My Dream Come True!

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Some fiftysomething woman with a small dog in her arms was waiting for him, backstage. Security hadn't succeeded in restraining her. Strange.

Sunday Storms

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Poems reflect their poets. / Mine: ugly but loved. / It is just as well.

in the sun

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an artist sits in the sun moving fingers through long hair

Johnny Bruzzone: Pool Hustler

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I was a coward and didn’t want to get killed like Heimley. Heimley was a nut at high school. I saw him myself one night put his hand right through the windshield of this car he was working on, along with a monkey wrench. Sure, he was drunk, but th

Dust to Dust

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He began to chop the powdery substance and separate it into segments.

Good Old Days

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That night, when Nostalgia knocked on my door just before dawn, I had just enough time to catch her coat as she slipped it off and staggered into my apartment.

Passion

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From words to meaning― how complicated it is.

Sidewalk Cafe at Night: van Gogh

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while the fat stars stand out in the cobalt night.

He is dying

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His only sibling had passed a few years back and his mother was the only one left of a gaggle of 7 brothers and sisters and their spouses. The turning of the generations, from birth to grave, was always a bit like the tilling of the ancestral soil. A new

The Maple Leaf Club

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One of his operas was confiscated when he couldn’t pay a hotel bill. He ended up in a mental home, demented from syphilis.

Liberty of Cooking

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My dish was slut ("all done" in Swedish). It tasted good though aroused no draft, of mutton, for example. My grandparents' bed held flat. I filed alone, in realist kitchen, reading Froeding, standing, striding, continent as gym.

Visiting Mom's Family in Oklahoma

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The strangers say hi at the Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, compliment my gold necklace, tell me I'm as beautiful as a Southern Belle, ask where I got my Gucci shoes. “Wow, New…

Joint Custody – The Second Coming

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A little boy sits at the table. He hears a knock at the door.“Mo-om!” the boy calls out. “Door!”His mother comes from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her clothing.“Jesus!” she says. “Would it kill you to answer the…

Sorrow

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It's not a funeral. Nobody to mourn over.

red lights alone

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before five/glancing down Academy Street/sloping west to where the tracks crossed/twisted tangled metal on wheels.

The Suicider (Short Version)

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He woke up four hours later with the second worst headache of his life. He leaned against the car door, his face against the window, and pulled the handle to open the door, but it hit the wall. He pulled himself out of the car by the top of the door frame

Sea Bubbles

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"I don't know why you say good-bye, I say hello."--The Beatles Things fall from the clouds. Things fall from thefloor. Maybe through, maybe all the way.Everyone argues for their homeland.Someday I'd like to hold your hand. I'mstill dreaming. I hope it continuesto rain…

Survival

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When nothing's coming in All I have are fragments Cloudy memories Uncompleted projects Disappointments loom large and threaten to define me I am only as good as what I produce And now I feel empty So how do I shine How do I find the spark that…

Wanderer and The Temple

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the odd stone stands/taller than trees/it protrudes from the young forest/an old mecca but smooth

The Room of Doors

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"Which way ought we to go from here," he asked. She smiled again, "that all depends on where we want to get to." He nodded but didn't laugh so she sighed and strolled around the room, tuning and looking and considering her options.

Love Note to/ Legal Pads

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toe and hand-/ holds against/ the shear cliff

OUR NEXT BREAK

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You welcome the new girl by putting a message on her back. I breathe harder until she pops or until you ask me what I’ve seen or until you see my hand turn into a fist.

Desire

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The young monk rose early to jog, his appetites trailing like cats in heat.

The Fake Humility of Stars is a Terrible Thing to Waste( in Three Recycled Parts)

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F Bomb I am coming in like a blackbird. Like I'm going to tickle your mud. I am coming in carrying a half-sunk message backward. Is that your lonesome answer? I am coming in to sweep for all saints. 'Course I didn't just wake up…

Either Side of the Glass

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Why do you lie? the old woman repeats when her mouth is not busy filling the waste bin. We sit as far away from her wheedle and wretch as the small waiting room allows. A young woman glares at us through the mental health clinic's safety glass…

Freakuccino

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The bus was almost empty, just me and an Asian girl who'd cleaned up some since I'd seen her. She was wearing a too-big T-shirt that said Freakuccino and writing in a notebook. If she remembered me she didn't say so I didn't either. Everybody sheds some…

Haikus for Miss Winehouse

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Drag queens weep sequins

Downtown

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bullets in flight make sharp, snapping noises.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 8

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“Okay,” Boris said, wiping his mouth, “ready to go see these paintings by Lenin? We go now.” “Where are these paintings exactly?” Ellen of Troy (NY) asked. I didn’t mention which Troy she was from. “I have friend in Prague,” Vladimir said. “Has sh

Mornings

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Over the last years of her life, my mornings began when Mom decided to play. Sitting on her black, ball-and-claw stool, she'd raise the key cover, stretch her neck and shoulders, and take slow, deliberate breaths. A deep, meditative state descended over the room and…