Most read stories

Things an Old Person Would Say

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Obituaries aren’t as much fun as they used to be.

living in the flames

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After it is over, I go out into the world, to the café. The flower sellers are setting up their booth outside the glass doors. Classical guitar over the speakers. A soft rain falling. Heads bowed, reading the news. Coffee, croissants, cappuccino. This g

The Sound of Paper

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From the earth it erupts Growing longer, stronger, as the sun rises and sets Days and nights pass, bringing the wind, the rain, the moon, the stars A place of shelter it becomes

Buddha in the backyard

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He sits ...

The Town Drunk

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“Living rooms,” said the town drunk, “are incapable of emanating.”

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.

SHADOW TREASURES

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Vikki respond, "Say big guy, you eat pussy?" The Mohawk flustered. "Uh!?...Yeah...sure." Vikki snickered, "Great. We got something in common. So do I."

The Stuffy Poet

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Getting up and reading his poem The stuffy poet sitting back down On the leather couch, which creaks under his weight After adjusting his narrow tie from the 1980’s The stuffy poet clearing his throat, twice, During an enemy’s reading The s

The Black Hole Cometh

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A few months back, Bob Delaney, the old Black Hole’s man with the plan (and more importantly, the check-signing authority), hired a young new guy named Gary — who had the unfortunate last name, Indiana — as a geriatric nurse at Bufordsville Retirement Com

Now I'm not a virgin anymore

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On my second trip home from the University of Illinois down state in Urbana, it was during our break between semesters, I remember it was a particularly freezing cold and miserable January (1963.) I had a date with Lynda.

My Resolutions for YOU In 2014

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Every year I make New Year's resolutions and every year I break them. So this year, I'm trying something different -- resolutions for other people. Hey world -- here are the changes I'd like to see YOU make in 2014(1) Cell phone owners: No more blathering on your cell in…

gravelortian part 3

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god's seed is asleep in the carseat

Always nervous

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and still every time I walked up there - so it can't be the cycling - I was nervous I would do it wrong

black

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my soul is black and it's deep like heartbreak and heavy as stone and as thick as ink and it is pressing on top of me like last nights one night stand like dead weight so that I can't lift my arms or spread my legs it feels like I am walking through mud but it's…

Junior League Therapy

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She laughed as she stuck up the word flaccid, it kept falling down

Pecking Order

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My first time all started with the girl on the bench. She had those perfect eyes, you know the ones, where you see them and you just can't help wanting to take everything she has on her. Those kind of eyes. And I saw them first. I was the first one there that morning at the…

Flight

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I know what to expect because this has happened before. The darkness, the stench of an unlit match, The leathery sound of old wings flapping and finally that voice made up of feces and dust, ancient and terrible suggesting depravity and painful deaths t

Anniversary

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We continue,/Held beyond all surface Liking it still/And each other/Often surprised:/Like finding garden flowers/No one planted/In summer bloom

Picked Up

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Tucker walked the long and lonely stretch of highway in front of him. The loneliness didn't matter; he had his own way of handling that feeling. The walking, however, was wearing away at his mind. How…

Valedictory

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A speech that could not have been anything but earnestly prepared, sweated out under a hot light bulb while june bugs thumped against screens, delivered to fellow graduates, relatives, a state senator, the high school principle, and faculty representatives, all seated …

Flashback

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Most of the deer around here have a higher IQ than the hunters.

the cold envies whom?

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cold plunges its lethal chill spade/into the dirt before cold takes the earth/to ossify it stiff with ice/the semblance of cold the semblance of death/said only to be felt this side of the grave.

Gray Lizard

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He can’t enlarge the rock—/ can only find its safest distance

Oh Captain, Good Captain: Part I

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I once knew a sailor...

Momma's Prayers

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One night, I wake and Daddy’s in the bathroom with a hanger in his mouth.

Oatmeal

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She found herself suddenly awake at five. She laid there in their bed while downstairs the coffee maker waited for her to press its button so it might gurgle and hiss, filling the pot with wakefulness. The dishwasher waited too, waited for her to throw its latch…

March Tenth, Two Thousand And Thirteen

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But the things I do know are the ways we've changed since we'd fallen into each other.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 20

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They are sea scallops wrapped in bacon, grilled with butter and lemon and plated in heavy seasoned cream sauce and served with apricot chutney.

Grey Zones

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There are these unspoken zones,where everybody is corrupt,and everybody is a con artist.Half the people are frauds,and the other half are phonies.Each person trying to outwit the next person,while everybody else tries to pick each others' pocket.Simultaneously and…

Screen Saver

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Carl was tight with stress, he is the lead architect and developer on a new condo in the newly gentrified section, DUM-AS, (which stands for Direct U-turn from Manhattan-Almost Scary.) Carl’s condo is one of a pair of new condo’s erected at the same time