Most read stories

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.

Duty

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Two girls, twelve years old, run down San Pedro Avenue past the market, the middle school, seven driveways, their small chests heaving. The smooth soles of their Mary Janes keep slipping on the gravel driveways. Two men in a rust-orange van bear…

Another Irresolute Essay on Lit and Crit

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. . . we agree that formal standards for identifying literary merit exist and are capable of being discerned, not merely of being ascribed. —but is this itself true?

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.4 - c.1

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Ciel’s eyes trembled at how this all could have happened. With tears falling down her cheeks, all senses of hope disappeared.

Out of the Woods

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No, your clever costume won’t protect you.

The Roman Twin

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Reverend Peter Roman could stand it no more. He stopped his speech. He felt a fire burning through him, a hatred for humanity and all the weaknesses of beings not perfect before God. He stood a long while, staring at the congregation. Then, he slowly spok

Gilbert B Fumbleberry

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“You know, Miss Viv, I love looking at the sun when it’s almost gone. It kinda looks like an orange and apple squished together. Those are the colors. And the puffy clouds under it look like a bed. It’s going to sleep."

Laundromat Haiku

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Laundromat

My Heart goes Boom

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On his knees in front of the transplant board, he pleaded for his ailing heart, spluttering on its last dying beats, to be replaced with a bomb.

The New Main Stream

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An hour later, we're no closer to the tunnel. In our rental car, we're just two in a school of a thousand fish skimming the edge of the island. Go with the flow, we keep saying to each other. We're just going with the flow. …

Boys With Antlers, Girls With Wings

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Now that you can go to a body shop and get nearly any mod you can imagine printed and attached in about an hour, every cracker-ass redneck is sporting a twelve-point rack...

Deaf

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box

Shards

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But you're everywhere, how can I move on? It's so easy for people to say, Get over it, the ‘it' being the smell of your skin, your smile, the taste of your lips, always sweet and salty, like a carnival treat. Remember that neon night when we knew it was over, how we…

The Vessel

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For so long as I think I shall live.

Precipitants

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we’ll never win/ the ongoing battle with dirt.

Home, Soldier

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felt as if someone had pulled me in by the belt, or grabbed me by a knot in the hair, and kissed me with fire-engine lips. I was happy. I was in love.

Reading Without an ISBN

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The goal is to perform along with Jason Lee Norman--who is touring with his book of very short stories called Americas--a selection from my own collection called Country Without a Name. The symmetry excites me.

Beowulf in Hell

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They strung him up, stowed on the balcony, and beat him with sticks, and beat him with rocks, and bent his muscles, …

Un(en)titled

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Our trouble decided when the CUNY PhD student, a poet, cried out, “Racination!” during discussion of my poem.

Variations on a Theme by Pina Bausch

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Threads of sadness in the hands, in the touch

Summer

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Précis Summer. Far from beautiful Prague, with its buzzing nightlife and pulsating, noisy crowds; away from the stamp, sway and spin, the odour of bodies, beer and cheap perfume; from the opulence and grandiose beauty, we sleep…

The Broken

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A precious heart unfolding the joy within Carefree play marked footsteps skipping along the way Such wonders untold awaiting a time of promise Stilled in the night by a grasping hand Held down in silence fear feeds off this soul Marking its to

The Anchorman

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Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of what we mean when we say "Tsunami: A Very Bad Thing."

Standards

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All I ask is that the guy has teeth and an income. More important are the teeth because he can always get a job, but he can’t un-rot the teeth he’s lost to meth.

No Lions or Tigers, Thank Goodness

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I scrambled back a bit and found my feet after untangling them from my trekking poles. Really should have dropped those when this all started. The bear lunged at me with his teeth and I just barely dodged to the left to avoid getting something bitten of

Recycling Evidence

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how much is downed/ to counteract the down/ with deeper down.

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.

Candle Smoke Wishes

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“The minute I stopped wondering about the meaning of life is when I finally started enjoying life.”

Christian Bell

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Night LifeThen things started getting weird. I could give you a time frame but it was back when times didn't matter really, one hour as good as the next and the minutes used to be minutes not the digital counting that makes this crazy world now spin. Here was…

When John Fell(Second Revised Version)

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"I still believe in love."--John Lennon It was war of the ancient order come to the farthest shore at last. No one leaves this world without an arrow through his heart. Why should I lie to you now? We all fight the truth in…