Most read stories

The Further Chronicles of Mars (tribute to Ray Bradbury)

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And in the dark caves a new secret, hidden from flyby probes and the imagination of men. In these new caves, names for the loved ones, Bradbury, Clarke, Rover

Music Boxes

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Mom would dig through one of her music boxes to pick out Saturday morning's cleaning jams. Tattered, battered Payless shoeboxes with lids ripped to shit, filled to capacity with piles of cassettes; greatest hits albums, mostly, or Time Life compilations of mid-to-late…

Control

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Paul and Mary Jo lived in an apartment at the top of a long, dark flight of stairs that were so high, I remember as if it were yesterday thinking, the night she pushed him down the stairs, he would surely be dead by the time he hit the landing at the…

Proud Mary

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Mary had no shoes. She told me they were stolen by someone at the shelter and I believed her because she stood there outside the Arlington T stop in a pair of tube socks. She told me she wasn't asking for money. She told me the shelter was serving seafood today so her…

Wilderness

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We call this game the end of the world...

Micromanaged Truth

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Let your father stay through that dinner when his mistress needed him, while your mother was on the verge.

Their Day

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The lace fell through the fingers, wrinkled and nimble they had become too used to avoiding the finite objects in life which needed attention. The white cotton sat loosely on her shoulders, the collar exposed the skin which had become dry and her shoulder

Sisters

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Jo was tailored, Amy was frivolous with ribbons and bows, Meg was plain and sensible; and Beth, who was ill and had no costume changes, wore the same nightgown throughout the dress-up session.

wrong way home

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this little piggy

Land Fill at Morning

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The gulls/ have somehow mastered the art// of avoiding the nooses of six-pack/ plastic rings

A Few Random Things I Learned About Bill Murray from "The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray."

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He once owned a dog named Bark. As a kid, he was kicked out of the Boy Scouts of America. His childhood nickname was “Sleepy.” When he was little, and alone, he used to sing songs to God. When he joined Second City in 1973, the troupe was…

Don't Forgive Me

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of anything if that's the way you feel your love must go down, off its last nut before the big victimizing crash of the end of days and flowers. But watch out for thosethorn bushes that grow from forgotten holes in the ground.…

Cloud Shaped Like a Heart

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The man who will lead you can be nothing if not already found underneath the light-heartedness of heaven, (dawn) if not under the light-heartedness of snow. He would have to have happiness already sewn into his soul. He bears no burdens

On A Carport in Bethlehem

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I can hear soft rain

fields of gold

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The son stood on the porch with his grip packed. "I'm off to mine me a fortune a gold, Daddy." "Boy, there's a fortune in gold right here," said the father, indicating the ripe wheat, glowing in early morning sun. The kid slumped. "Pop, you turn over a rock there,…

Professor University

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Is this a tenure track position?

A mere second is enough...

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This was why the man on the bicycle was still in time to turn his head to her because he thought it was his sister who lived in California, because she wore the same jacket and in his inattentiveness almost ran over another cyclist.

Five Acts

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The television was playing reruns of Mr. Ed, but it was hard to hear because of the flock of birds in the palm tree. I’d sometimes imagined the birds coming through the window, a swarming of pink cotton mouths, mawing everything in sight.

Puzzle Pieces

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temporary objects of desire

Ten Books That Have Stuck with Me Off the Top of My Head as I Make Them Up, #1

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“Miss Brown had spent the morning (was it just this morning? Or another?) purchasing parsnips and leafy green vegetables from the local grocers, when she was overcome by a wave of nausea. The world went black and she awoke in a windowless, doorless room.

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…

His Bus

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He'd always considered it his bus.

Coalheart

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He is sleek with hearts and I see a different name etched onto each one.

Roanne Smiled

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With some of these guys it was like propping a kid on a training-wheel bike, then steering the kid down the street til he figured out what to do next. Tricks would come into the bar. Roanne had a smile for all but the dregs…

Bands, Again?

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Monkey Business Low Ceiling Wagging Tongues Guest Sweet Murphy’s Law Kinda Hot Stopit! Freedom Ring Lumpy Oatmeal Better Not Butter Up Grumpy Umpire

Never Catch Me Alive

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We walk with our heads down, maybe 15 of us, moving under a sun that has grown to encompass everything. Everything is in hues of orange and red like a bloody eyeball on fire.

Finite

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This was not a good sign, comforting gestures from strangers were bad omens.

Skunks

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I tell people that we leave out food for the creatures to appease the skunk gods.

Last Cricket

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The weather, mid-sixties now, will take its toll on this singular voice.

A Noir Celebration

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A kind of sucking darkness into A kind of noir celebration of despair