Most read stories

Jukebox Genesis

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Once something starts, there is no telling where it will go.

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

Plume

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Gossamer wisps bloom in the barren air.

The Passing of Odd Fellows ---- Tales From the IV

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The appointed day came without much fanfare. The day was gloomy, but it would do. They climbed to the roof of the house to a small landing where Smiley placed the tiny piano stool smack dab in the middle. As soon as Ethan sat down Smiley rotated the chair

Thwart

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Daily, at 3:47 PM, below his office window, a child in an orange windbreaker sits in the last car of the T, in the rear seat, face pressed against glass.

Twilight Is Merely A Shade of Color

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Its edges fluttering in the dull breeze, today's town newspaper lay at my old feet, open to the obituary page.

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…

Because the night

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I glance back over my shoulder as you fumble with the keys. Repeatedly. You swear a little under your breath. You finally locate the proper one and the large door swings open. I hold it as you run over to the alarm keypad. You punch in the code written on a…

Rest In Peace

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Gone he is in his designated place Just resting in peace while I barely move on

Spring Darkness In the Age of Video

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This spring darkness is winding around my neckin the age of video, how many times I've seen her at the zoowith your eyes, as if seeing for the first timeher early morning breath, tripping your woman, your angelas she arrived on the beach when it was still too dark to see…

Semiotics For Sale

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Buy random DNA on the open market and drive a poisoned stake into the heart of darkness.

A Return to Silence

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Instead we dunked the men in vats of grease and boiling water. Instead we tore apart the books from which they emerged. Instead we found the graves of their mothers and detonated bombs.

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.

Breath for Nick Cage

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But El Roy Never listen no so

Sonnets III-VI (The Ishtar Sonnets)

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With porc’lain hand she writes thy thankless verse/ Like Proserpina, strapped to eb’ny throne,/ Eternally paying the six-month purse/ For hunger once soothed with but seeds alone.

gravelortian part 7

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suck chew sip

Unguent

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Spilled milk it is --lactate of common desire;water under the bridge, slow-moving, white. So this is what we feed on: the past and present here for the licking.Sweat is water too,for the hungry, and any past will do. Parched mouths kiss just as well as…

The portrait

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Gestures we would like to make in the solitude of a café terrace ... Early in the morning ... She's sitting there, seems shivering. Grey dress, red scarf. Her eyes move. I try to meet them - small, vague black clouds which pass, without resting, by mine. She drinks her…

Bucket

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There was a bucket of shit . . .

Will I Eventually Be Everybody?

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A jump, a fall, that's how it begins. I don't know much about living but dying I should have down to a science, if practice makes perfect. Death by burning as a withc (often) a warlock (not so much) a heretic (quite a bit, you'd be surprised--though, if you…

Dead Uncle

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When Roy had seen the first of the movies in his dorm's weekend double feature that night (the University of Maine at Orono — as Stephen king once quipped, “that crossword-puzzle favorite”) …

the swan gliding before death

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When you awaken on the other side, you will see, I was like the swan gliding before death, and the animating power of her is willing and unavoidable. And you are itching, feeling an inextinguishable sexual desire, its nightmare ink burnt in your head, n

Life of a Dead Bird

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I have the idea but cannot find the words

Drinking the Wild Virgin

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I really think we ought to be drinking The Wild Virgin again I remember having a beer once And feeling like a minor god, yes Just like you did So, now, listen to me: if she snores all night That’s one thing But if she screws the lights out

goddess of personified flesh

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And yes, I may be the goddess of personified flesh, the same little goddess of curled locks, of little sleep, on fire, ablaze. With my sudden weakness, stoppage of breath, pulse cut short, leaving the wrist. And you of stolen, fraudulent face, troub

Valentine query

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Did I flirt first?

The Infamous Kiss

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When the sailor heard the 2nd World War had just ended He grabbed the woman in the white dress Bent her backwards in Times Square And kissed her real good And the photographer Just happened to be there At the right moment But then As

The Serendipitous Nature of Being

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To do the proper set up for the story, it was taking me some time, but each bit was important to the outcome, and while he likened me to Higgens on the old Magnum P.I. series, I just laughed at his slowly closing eyes and folded arm, caught in a half cur

Sneaker Waves

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On the way inside, Peter stopped a moment on the deck and scanned the trees for the raven he and Lottie had seen at lunch. It wasn't there. Of course it wasn't there. He scanned the beach, the rocks and broken shells, the damp stinking rafts of seaweed with their rubbery…

Blueprint for a tale

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Remove with care, then slowly lay the string, wide well-soaked end at left-hand edge, to start, and allow to curve, to bend, to almost loop and wind its way at rest across the mottled, patterned green