Most read stories

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…

What was your first Combat Mobile Team experience?

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My first Combat Mobile experience was as the only Specialist in an ATC ("air traffic control") assignment. The rest of the squad were simple grunts lead by the massive Sergeant James T. Adams, Regular Army, the ghost of the Central Highlands. Sgt. Adams m

The Giver and The Gone

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They were once a crown,of some living stag -- not quite old,not quite young: now bone. Something at the cusp of its age. Here they stand, given by a loved friendon a place in my home; smelling, whenI get very close, of time. They are shaped like small…

Gentry Major

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“Paroxysms, well, what in the hell’s a paroxysm?” “I think the better question is what kind of name is Gentry, Gentry?” “Yes, that’s a better question. Do you really want to know? I was named after my grandfather, Ol’ Gentry Jones Filips III. They

Convenience

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I drove all night, but there weren’t nothing Roy Orbison about it. I’d been driving and around lunchtime I just thought I might stop by Shona’s place.

My Bossa Nova Years

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It is no coincidence that the bossa nova craze coincided with the years in which I achieved my greatest romantic success--first through sixth grades.

Assiduity Eighteen

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A convoy of military vehicles is heading into the city as we are heading out.

Unreasonability

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kindergarteners sent to class with Uzis

you are the stem that rises

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In my dream I am the showy leaf, and you are the stem, and you are the strength. I am the leaf turning colors, my face flushed, the fine hair at my neck, and there is the deep carnal twisting around your stem that sends me floating to the ceiling over a

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

The Passenger

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I will not leave the boat. The sea has left you.

Working at a Truck Stop Outside Charlotte

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My name's Barbara and don't call me Barbie if you want to be my friend.

The Anguish of Easter

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I used to be so certain about right and wrong. About choices and their consequences. About heaven and hell and how there was no room in between no space in between no point in between (take that point how you will)

Frontiers Yugoslavia Thirty Notwithstanding

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Frontiers Yugoslavia Thirty Notwithstanding (after Tristan Tzara) Responsible badly countries,circumstances better to that, powerlessness.Women these gender-determined “pluralist” conditionSoviet as overall the Women societies little countries.Have official…

Brown Plastic Bag.

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[ADVERTISEMENT: If you look for it, Google search, for 'html special characters,' the UT Austin page will come up, and you can just Cut & Paste 'em. Fuck the code!]

The Fat Geisha Sings The Ballad of the Bamboo Shoot

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Come gather round and listen to me You senior VPs from AIG As full of yourselves As you are of wealth So engorged are you with raging greed The warnings you neither see nor heed. Come gather round and listen to me Sing of the Minister of the Third Degree. …

Shuffle

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Something is clearly wrong with them and we're supposed to socialize them.

My Back Hurts

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There’s a room Full of white And it smells Like bleach and Iron

Rechargeable Batteries

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Was he really a Secret Service guy? No time to think now! Quick as lightning, Rachel bounded over the sleeping matron and sprinted up the aisle.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

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Eva stepped out of the hut she and Javier shared and slogged through the mud toward the coop to fetch fresh eggs for Javier's breakfast. None existed. Javier became angry when he didn't get his eggs. Eva slowed her pace as she neared the door. She knew wh

The Revenge of the Dead Music

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The wind is represented by Miss Abigail Weatherspoon, attorney at law. She wears a pink feather boa and is the spitting image of Janis Joplin as she appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967.

We are the miserable

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We are the miserable, annoyed, dismayed sick. We slouch on black naugahyde chairs too pathetic to reach for magazines. The computer is down the young receptionist has explained to each of us in young, florid style, complete with “I…

Shirley Ave.

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What can I offer you, White Moon?This full night lays black before your stoic assent—and Ibreathe my final breath, frantic—for you. I wait, damned,a bestial lover in the broken dark of the variety market, whisperinga word of forgiveness to an empty window. I…

the wall

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Looking at an image of a graffiti on a wall on our computer screen we ask ourselves: what is the image's main graffiti-like property? We might answer: its location. But that is a contextual and political interpretation. There's nothing in that answer which addresses the…

In Memoriam

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One by one, cars filed into the cemetery, pelted by the summer rain under a gun-metal sky. The procession moved slowly, a series of brake lights and headlights, too close together, too far apart; there were sedans and SUVs, mini-vans and pick-up trucks, shiny new vehicles…

Mantis

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Sally knows the situation: if your name's on the list you can't come in. If they try to walk past her, swipe their card on the electronic barrier's scanner, instead of a short benevolent bleep and the gate sliding open, it will fail. The hapless individua

An Excoriated Sensibility

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The machines of her perception/ tuned themselves to frequencies// that peeled her skin and fatty tissue

Blonde on Blonde

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Happens at a party, this way, past frat boys perched in branches like idiot hoot owls,

The Yolk

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It's a house of eggs.

Hive mentality

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My anger over yesterday's argument with you slipped from memory when I felt the first of the two hundred bee stings, each tiny jab another burst of brilliant pain, and each little attack another reminder to watch where I'm walking.