Most read stories

luncheon on the grass

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I had a dream, I remember, where I am in this painting, Luncheon on the Grass. My dress was thrown off and the picnic basket, filled with bread and fruit, is spilled out upon it, and I am sitting nude on my underclothing, with two gentlemen fully dresse

Valentine query

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Did I flirt first?

A Day at the Fair

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“You just missed that last time,” the carney was saying as Sue Ellen walked up. “Give it one more try and I’ll bet you get your girl a big teddy bear. C’mon.”

He's So Pretty I'd Dump My Boyfriend For Him

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I remember when we first met, telling my friends, He’s so pretty I’d dump my boyfriend for him. I remember driving all around Elmhurst looking for parking. We sat in the car eating figs and popcorn. We tried to throw the fig pits or stumps, or wh

The Albatross

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Gigantically heaping past the dawn, White rider, swinging circles into light, Do you cross the spar-lengths of meridians, O albatross, conspirant of the thought The sea dreams of its relic mastery? Rainbowed reliquary of…

Cold, wet and dreary.

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Cold, wet and dreary.The three words that describe Belgium. A country that owns so little identity. Sure, there are the mussels, beer, wafels and chocolate ... But that's about as far as it goes. The lack of identity rules the country, grayness rules the horizon. And…

Drunk, There are Cymbals for Everything

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On the way back from New Jersey this afternoon, my dad kept pressing “seek” on the radio dial so he could find WBLS, which we listened to last night, also on our way back from New Jersey. I was driving last night because I wanted to and because I think my dad…

Little Red Riding Hood, The Woodcutter, Grandma, and The Big Bad Wolf: Their Ongoing True Story

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Grim though it be Little Red Riding Hood and The Woodcutter, with his hewing axe, eviscerate and skin the Big Bad Wolf, thus rescuing sickly Grandma. Grandma’s a bit worse for the wear after her couple of hours in Big Bad’s overstuffed stomach. But she cl

The Woman on the Train

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When I awoke she was there again, the woman with the blue scarf. She was standing by the compartment door, gazing out at the passing countryside, the rolling hills of France. I had seen her before, at the market buying flowers, outside a cafe hailing a taxi,…

Waterstones and The Fridge

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I try to slot into order the sequence of events: the book deal that appeared and then winked away like a dying star, the white gloves and the brick through Waterstone's window; my novel lying in the shop front in a bed of glass.

Becky

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But it was one of those odd moments in America when you get to see the opposite sex with most of their clothes off, other than at a swimming pool in the summertime. One thing led to another and she wheedled out of me the fact that I drove a very fast ’

Puppet X, 1

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I know you, ladies and gentlemen We see the near future through you Your factual face as you sit indoors Youthless In your ordinary chair "Mice run through their vision Mice run through

Metro Blues.

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She had no eyes that I could see. Just a pair of lips; they looked soft

I Can Sing Like That

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Here lately Daddy's been talking bout' filling momma full of holes. Not like he would do it cause' he likes talkin' just to hear the words come out even if they don't mean anything to anyone but him. But just to be on the safe side I went and hid them shells cause' he's got…

The Dork Shoe

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A strange man tapped my door and held up the shoes for me to see. “It is the Dork Shoe,” he said. I looked past him at his dusty station wagon filled with boxes. “I have your size right here.” I observed the halo of his gray hair as he…

A Way of Place

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There are people walking, not knowing where they are, a way to peace is just that-- a place to go.

Crisp and New

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He told me it isn’t my fault. That my brain isn’t slowly and deliberately killing itself, not barbarically stripping away its own wiring to expose razor bursts of electricity.

Dreams That Sorrow Owns

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Maybe tomorrow someone dreams And maybe someone moans But beware the steam inside the dome It’s just dreams that sorrow owns If it resonates, say so Ho in a raccoon coat Slow bum ahead If it resonates, say so, say so And her man, yo

Lost

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I don’t know where I am. It is summertime, at dusk; the dying sun and the newborn moon are low on opposite horizons.

Bucket

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There was a bucket of shit . . .

Quit Complaining, Willya!

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"You think life is supposed to be easy? Whoever told you that? My life is anything but easy; still you don't hear me whining all over the place. And, trust me, I could teach you a thing or two about suffering.

Mrs. Smedley's Art Class

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THERE ARE TWO PARTS. FROM PART ONE: (Later the police escort the students out, directing them to keep their hands in the air, as they file out into the parking lot. They wrap Mrs. Smedley in a blanket as she stares out blankly in shock. "How is Linda? Is

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

Letter

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I'm writing you this letter played on a cherry flute. I'm sending it along through the poem's cloud of incense. The only delivery system I still hitch up for long distance pitching. I'm writing you a letter you'll probably never read. Never…

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

Otherwise Chaos

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“It’s okay” Her psychic from Santa Fe Said on the speaker phone: "live and love and create otherwise chaos"

The Big Faith

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She didn’t want anybody to hear her heaving and crying. She frantically pulled as much toilet paper as possible and stuffed it into her mouth so her sobs would be silenced. Then she slid against the wall next to the toilet and landed on the concrete floor

Head

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Z. takes lewd/suggestions/with little blinks/of his everlasting/eyelashes.

Through Darkly Tinted Glass

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Something much longer.

Sic Transit

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He was that famous actor—now famously forgotten—most renowned for his exits. He could burst through an in or out door with the best of them. Better than the best of them; he was the best of them. With the subtlety of his often noisy art he could…