Most read stories

Natural Histories II

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n truth, they are not red/ but chestnut./ But “Chestnut Wasp” lacks menace

Firecracker to the Dome

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pulling my bones apart, fingers are supernatural beings

Wilting Magnolia

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White sneakers cry, dripping from the power lines.

4 Scars

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Within 3 seconds the replicant Abraham Lincoln now knew everything there was to know in this world. The errant input function had created a memory leak that lead into the network. First local systems, local networks, to city, state, government, then world

no one answered

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I knocked on all the windows, on all the doors. No one answered. The television was glowing. I went around behind your house and saw it through the curtains, blowing in. (I knew you were hurting.) Knocked and tried the sliding glass door, the flimsy scr

Nigtingale

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Thirty is nothing, she said, Wait till you really start to fall apart. I wanted to tell her I already have, but you can't ever say anything like that, especially not on your birthday, especially not to the woman who's just bought you spaghetti and wants

David and Big Bird

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Hot sweaty bodies slam into each other to get aboard the overflowing subway car. I struggle to wedge myself though the sliding doors, bracing for more bodies to press against mine. The passengers in front of me suddenly stop and fan out.

I Know You, Ladies and Gentlemen

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On my way home that first night, I stopped off at a liquor store on San Pablo Avenue and bought a semi-expensive ($2.98) bottle of zinfandel, a real luxury for us. But I figured I would have a paycheck coming and wanted to celebrate my getting a real jo

Aloneland

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I think I have experienced this before: This fractal sigh upon the star-scarped floor, That makes this concrete mock of valley heath- Below the traffic lanterns at the door, Of frigid other flowers lovers ‘queath None but their eyes to.…

The Library of the Realm of Dreams

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I hold down the control-alt-delete keys simultaneously and the screen goes blank, sending Camus into a paroxysm of fear; for a guy who wrote an essay on facing down suicide, he’s kind of jumpy.

The Little Engine That Shouldn't (a political metaphor)

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The rings on the engine Not designed for race gas Did allow for some seepage Did allow fuel to pass The fumes were quite powerful To the pan they did charge The spark was quite forceful The explosion was large

The Fruitless Resuscitation

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I was sent here to perform the autopsy on the norm, the status quo, the bourgeois.

Lineage

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the arc of her invective presumably aimed at the little boy and girl ambling halfway down the block behind her

He Sure Can Play Piano with Those Giant Lobster Hands

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He sure can play piano With those giant lobster hands In his ratty raccoon coat And his old black cowboy hat His boots of Spanish leather And face like sultry weather His raspy croaking voice Picking out the words so choice They reall

Not Here and Therefore Everywhere

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Sometimes I try to hum / along with the air conditioning, / and pretend I do not exist, but am merely / the space that fills the room.

The Storyteller

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Our fingers, arms and toes slither over one another along the smooth crevices between muscle and bone like familiar childhood paths.

Bulldozer

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First the room is blank white and then she is placed there and one by one everything is penciled in. Her, in a loose and flowery dress that conceals her feet; a black and white cat, who wraps her tail around her legs and looks up, head moving trying to interpret;…

So then she says

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She says that she’s a prisoner in her own life, and if she wants to get drunk at two in the afternoon with a bunch of union men, then she’ll do it. She says I am welcome to go fuck myself.

Incantatory Plea to the Civic on Interstate 75

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May the timing belt stand the stress again

Tonschmerz

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Deists try to prove the existence of God. I do not doubt God nor evidence of the existence of Jesus nor Jesus' miracles. I merely wish there were more people like him

Storytime with E. E. Zulkoski

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...afraid of cancer, fire, floods, famine, being audited by the IRS....the list goes on and on....

Rot

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Character Witness

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You will say how easy it was to love him, How he is kind, gentle, Quick to rub your shoulders in the evening And never one to forget an anniversary. They will ask you of his interests, moods, pass-times And you will silently think of…

To Fill the Hollows

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most famously, a small/ writhing dog. A thousand casts were made/ before they stopped

Totem Song

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Will you leave me, you, the one?

paper doll

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she covered me with down and kissed me good night, tucking in loose ends, whispering prayers... she cut me out of paper and blew me into life. she held the scissors near my neck in case i put up a fight. she covered me in clothes cut out of colored paper: polka dotted…

A Guy's Guy Kind of Guy

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I like to keep my mind uncluttered for truly fresh information, like the fact that T.S. Eliot taught Virginia Woolf the Chicken Strut. That's news you can use.

Someday

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He called himself Theodore Birdwhistle.

Soliloquies of the Interior Zombies

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My inner shape must be a ruin of organs,/ dead or dying. But do come close enough/ for me to hear. I need to know your story.

Anaphylaxis

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I remembered our wedding reception. I tasted the crab cake, pulled her from greeting people, said, you have to try. And she did.