Most read stories

The Threat of Distance

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The lone young man walking in the distance,/receding silently,

the starry night. van Gogh

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Fortunately not all of the stars are represented in the sky, which is already filled enough with them, or their influence. Two separate swirling rivers of light are flowing into the picture as it is. And each of the stars and the crescent moon are pregn

When the Snow Geese Fly

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When the snow geese fly to the warming marshes,when the ice melts on the pond in the wood,when the sweet breath of fresh-mown haylofts over us and settles on the fields,I will remember you have been a blessing,a quiet steady forceWe will sit at the kitchen table and…

Silly Soliloquy

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If I had alcohol in me right now I'd be singing out loud. I'd turn this boat around & turn it into a karaoke bar. Why is it even worth mentioning? This is why people gaze abstractedly at the ground. Ambition is thirty gallons of gas & a red Silverado. Wishing, on…

Would You Name YOUR Dog Voldemort?

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So you don't want to give your dog an ordinary name like Fido or Spot. And you love books. So, naturally, you turn to your favorite literary classics when it's time to name the new puppy. The result? This list of actual canine names inspired by literature (from…

Sunday Evening, 4:23AM

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The rhythm of my breathing is a litany of regret.

The Angel with The Broken Wing

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"She was like a perimeter guard for an advanced race of beings who looked human but were somehow para-human entities focused only temporarily within this dimension."

Probability of Rain

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haiku

All About You

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Sometimes you want to strike out at me. What is stopping you? There is no stopping you. You know I will not retaliate. Gone is all that I will be to you then.

Identity

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We’re forty-three.

After Appomattox

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The renegade states- Virginia, Georgia,/ Texas, and the rest- should have lost their names

Optimum Condition

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I have hate and it is black not midnight, crisp fresh clear. Unadulterated. It is dirty, poor, gritty solid rough like unripe stone fruit. A peach, mealy and dry. The killing, effete, endures. Silent, my repugnance, sick, eats…

Me and Frisco on the Road

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I don't think I minded so much watching the trucks hit him, one breaking his spine with a decisive snap, and the other finishing the job by splitting his skull. I don't think I minded watching as much as I did watching those two boys poking around at his

The Answer at the Bottom of the Stairs

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She knew she had missed a step as her body rolled down the stairs. Panic set in as the world flew by her at lightening speed. Would she survive?

Each Planned to Kill the Other

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What was heinous about it was how easy I assumed it would be. That was truly heinous, and it was a mistake in the end to think of it that way. But I’ve learned from what’s heinous. I’ve bought a plastic cylinder filled with nylon zip ties. They’re great f

The Flame Child

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Lupe drove. She didn't know where she was going, but still she drove. The Mustang whined because she did not shift gears. The street was wet from a night rain and if…

Weeknights, Idling, Candlelight

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I find that I am keeping silent more often. I don't like repeating myself.

Thanksgiving

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Unless we see it, probe it, Name it, star by star, and feel This awful, tenuous gratitude.

Twenty Percent

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That September, he had enjoyed drinks in the company of now-dead utopians.

Spider on a Red Thing

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Equality became the next goal, rendering gay redundant in describing marriage. Gaelic life is ringed with sharing and lent the word slogan.

Margaret, Pleased

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Grace looks at her cell phone. It had been about a week since her Aunt Margaret fell, slipping gracefully down the stairs and pulling her shoulder out as she grabbed the banister, her hand caught in the holiday streamers spiraling down the railing. Every

Our Handsome Whales

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are speaking clear enough, through their open and bleeding wounds, for you to at least try and understand. Waving their massive arms like living lighthouses, bobbing in and out of the floundering waves, they are splashing out an…

The Third Leading Cause

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I leave the 29 to go after the 1

The Calamity Train (Pulling Seven Cattle Cars):Remixed for the Occupy Yourself Movement

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We believe in our love storyin spite of the ferocious efforts ofserial bankerseverywhere to discourage us from looking our damned nearprettiest if we really feel like it. I meangranted they do do their ugly troll dogimpressions of…

Best blurb (pitch) -- and thanks, Sally and Prickly

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The author's note explains...

The House on El Nino Diablo Court

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On a cold, dark night near to All Hallows' Eve in October of 1930, I was summoned by Constable John Wakefield to the house of Vernalier Driscoll. The constable was wild-eyed and very nervous, his hair appeared to be standing on end.

Edith Head's Heady Day

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Rain dressed for winter, a win, she thought

from Tsalmaveth

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Anastomose my veins to / yours so we may / share // a dream pooled between us

Second Collage

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B developed a thick emulsion that he paints onto the pieces of meat on which he prints photographs.

Chu Berry, Tenor Wrapped in Swaddling

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They heard Chu’s voice, he was lying ten feet away, his skull opened up. “Find my change,” was all he was saying. “I left my change around, look for it."