Most read stories

Firecracker to the Dome

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pulling my bones apart, fingers are supernatural beings

On Tuesday

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When they talk, they put their hands like a cup around their mouth

Ice Box

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To become an objection as cool as an ice box. To wither the crops. To hold a baby in your hands. Never mind, the arms. We shoot photographs of you. I still believe in black bile. I still think I'm holy. This rhyme is non-violent. Snap.

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

Creamy, Dreamy, Coppertone Cologne

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and live for that moment

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

One Night Stand in Laguna Beach

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One time in Laguna Beach I remember sleeping with a girl I met at this café, the Jolly Roger, when we went back to my apartment and had unprotected sex. She said she was on the pill, but you never know. It was just that one time, and she did seem desperat

Tending Toward Inertia

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She meets her old dance instructor, named Ira, in the back of a bus that wheezes & squeaks. The passengers seem to deny the small clouds of white exhaust

Mo Bands

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Beeswax Just Kill Me Beam Me Up Deep-Fried Twinkie End of Lust Hootchie and the Eye Patch Boy Crazy Instant Success Sleeping Geezers Cyber Shoes

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…

Answers Without Questions

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My father did not die before I was born. That much I can cite as not only fact but an absolute necessity to my existence. However, my father is dead. You can wrap as much sentiment and emotion around it as you wish, but you can't get away from the blunt…

When Leaves Fall

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And then she'd wipe her eyes, sweep her hair between the crest of her left ear and the side of her face and press that ear to the knot.

two of five

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Across the street from third street music school there is a church wherein I saw a man, a magician, strap himself into a strait jacket in front of the organ under jesus's crucifixion, in front of a church full of screaming kids and their parents and…

A Question for the Gods

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She reached out her arms and spoke to the moon, "I ran from my fears, from loving too soon." She gazed at the heavens and cried to the stars, "I could not promise him all of my heart." She wiped away her tears and laughed at the trees, "Not a soul on this earth would…

Old, Broken Toys

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A boy sits in a room filled with old, broken toys. A mother is in the next room reading Cosmopolitan, dreaming of a life that should have been hers. There is the zoo and an unnecessary stroller on a very humid day, beads of sweat dripping slowly down a face. A trip to the…

Heart Apart

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Yes, I had pulled my own heart apart Yes, I had slipped up on time itself In its own backyard behind my memories And scared the crap out of it By not yelling, just sniffing at its neck Longingly, tearing it apart with my teeth Wishing I had

The January Oak

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tiny banners, browned/ and wrinkled by time,

a confession

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a pit-bull or a rottweiler or something like that

.38

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His name was Gino. I’ll leave out the last name, not that I think it matters anymore. He came into my dad’s gas station on the near North side of Chicago to have work done on his fancy car. I was still a teenager. I accidentally opened the glove compartme

A Political Man

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There's a potent multimedia declaration Flying eagles starred and striped Mocking cartoon independence Where every promise shines Not every veteran's hero Chequered drug misuse Glorious public relations Concealed a…

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

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

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.”

TOUR GUIDES (Granada Studios 1989)

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Dancers, dunces and brides-to-be

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.

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....

At a Reading

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His wife leans her head against a beam with her eyes closed while he reads out loud. Her mouth shut tightly, almost twisted shut. She's so weary. She raises her collar and sinks further into her neck. When he shouts, or explodes — nothing. Not

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 42

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If I start getting rambunctious, put me in a cab.

and now for the news ...

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nope. no excerpt for you.

77 Words About Nothing [5-24-2012]

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Alright is alright but alright is a state of mind, right?