Most read stories

On the Deeper Slants of the Universe

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Everything makes sense.

The Tragically Short Life of the American Barfly

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That is then and the devil reigns in the here and now. Tonight I am the barfly and tomorrow I die.

BORDER JUSTICE

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CHAPTER ONE About nine-thirty P.M. on Friday night, Mary Fowler pushed her grocery cart through the double sliding glass doors. It was three weeks before Christmas. The sun had set and the temperature had begun to cool rapidly in…

No Rocks On This End

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Take a flying leap?Mother would never agreeSo away from the campground we sneakTo show the boy where I was a boySummer day shirtless with swimsuits onOne hundred degrees walking through the treesThe season early with winter runoffWater here still seventy feet deepHoping the…

The Meat Lady

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After all our morals And ethics of distrust Have been ripped out And discussed There’s still the Meat Lady At the end of the day Standing around in the midst of the crowd Handing out her meat In little morsels on a toothpick Af

THE PERFECT KIND OF HAPPY

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I think of particles exploding, coming back together like some physics experiment I don’t know the name for. “Large Hadron Collider,” you say. But that’s not what I mean.

Superheroes

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I change things without notice for himto make sure he's ready for the corporate world. It's no longer our goal to watch cartoonswe must now focus on breakfastthenaction figures. "But Daddy," he says. "I likecartoons." "I know it hurts," I say."But…

The Linguist

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I let the little fingers slip thinking they couldn't stand to hold on anymore. When they were done they said addled and I was left behind in the room with only my hand. I hurt myself trying to picture the pretty girls and they took out a piece above my eye. …

I HEART INTERNET

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What can I say about the Internet It's one of the best inventions since the TV set It's a place you can do research and shop A place where you can sell everything from shoes to stock You can go to rooms and chat And meet some nice people or some that seem…

Poetry Hour at the Regional House of Pancakes

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The waitress appears and Fred gives her a big smile and th3 once over. It's no wonder he's had so many women in his life while I've . . . uh . . . read a lot of books.

M Box

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I do that now. And I shiver. My mom's eyes don't seem to have any expression. They look lifeless. Her eyes look... dead. Stop it, Alison, I tell myself. You're being stupid.

Interlude: Beauty

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Musing on female beauty I came up with this: it makes my dick hard. And if that's a bit crude, well, hell, I'm dead. Want to sue me? Back when the clans were at one with the earth, circa goo-gobs of long years B.C., female beauty meant…

Nineteen in '72

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bursting girl there is no moon

black crescent curved under

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I hope my blonde down still beats in your heart, and the black crescent curved under, you will remember, and I would move toward your window where my own heart lay in a dish, with the thick valley lifting. Remember, I crossed and uncrossed my legs f

Evensong

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The way horizons disappear in the dark.

Something Like the Promise of a Better Life

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Unhappiness is a necessary boon

Stop Sign

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Made sense then, should have written it down - But I fell back to sleep instead

There’s Just This

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Coupling—why did I say that? Who says that? I mean the clacking together of bones, the willful splitting of fine and tender skin.

No One Was Watching

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What happens in life when no one is watching?

Zip 75248

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A stroll along the golf course rim reveals Polo-logoed litter. Could this be what they mean by white trash?

Meet Your Happy-Go-Lucky Poet

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"Time is an ocean, but it ends at the shore. You may not see me tomorrow."--Bob DylanThey're writing poems, but not for me. Guess I'll write one for my own. For nobody that I know now. It's a pretty lonely world for someone who sings, not you, not with…

Village Life Brochure

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I live in a small fishing village where small people fish and others gossip or invent bizarre methods by which to irritate each other. During our weekly power cuts I go outside and cross the street, sitting on the pharmacy steps to watch myself not be at home in the…

Visions

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colors dancing on metric vectors

Why I Gave Up on Math and Began My Big Fat Writing Career

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I’d met this crowd of drunken poets from San Francisco Even though this was smack dab in the middle of winter Smack dab in the middle of the flattened Illinois plains Why they all left San Francisco I’ll never completely understand But there we we

Class

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Before they ever spoke, Linda and Meg had sat next to each other in the cramped lecture hall for three weeks, their thighs touching, while Dr. Laurens showed slides of ancient Japanese art. Meg's eyes never left the screen, but Linda glanced at her as often as she…

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…

A Dream in Brick

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A man walks up and faces this new red brick wall The bricks are all perfect as you might expect in a dream And the cement is tuck-pointed without a dribble, anywhere He looks at the wall and puts his head through it And when he pulls h

The Overfilled Silence

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At the Rest Home for Silence We are teenagers At best I have to admit I fell asleep on the bus On the way to the Rest Home For Silence And I woke up To the noise Coming from the Overfilled silence It's the overfilled silenc

The Oxymoronic Life of a Nearly Dead Woman

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I could have a minor stroke.

Whole Day Off

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...an aggregation of physical nature with the abstraction of 'applicabilty,' more than just a word, but a magickal spell that conjures technology out of ecology.