Most read stories

Girls

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Every boy on the boardwalk stared when she and Rosa walked by, everyone of them had their sweet wet dream about the Dominguez sisters.

on a long suburban plain

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We were stuck sweating it out on a long suburban plain when you left. Or else we’d mob the one visible hill (in Palos Hills, or Hillside) and turn the televisions on, looking behind us nervously, hopelessly, until every evening became a Wednesday evenin

Wonder as the Sum of All My Ignorance

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Questions unanswered proliferate/ across the April sky, blue// with wisps of cirrus white.

The Abstracted Man

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The abstracted man lacks an inside. He is a body. A shell. An exterior that encompasses nothing.The abstracted man yearns to fill himself with adjectives. He lumbers through streets. No adjectives fit. He finds adjectives where we discard them. He carries them in his…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 55

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The rising sun was hidden from his eyes by the hips of the woman next to him in the bed.

Someday

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and as in real life, occasionally sneezed on.

Suspicious Activity

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I go down to pick up R and get a cartridge of black ink for the printer. It's an extremely pleasant summer day — early afternoon — and the air is exemplary: clear and sweet. So far so good. But as soon as I park and go to a nearby cash machine the fun begins.…

Rest In Peace

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

Saturdays with Satan

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You know what's wrong with Hell these days? Do ya? It's too fucking corporate. Too commercial.

A Hundred Feet

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Why I roamed these flats, choir-Like floors of a century forgivenAnd wedded in an XXL gownIs beyond us. Give me something extra, please. This Town rides in like a school bus.

The End

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"Tell me what you remember."

The Enabler

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I still see you lying on the tracks

Falling

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She lets the book drop through her fingers to the floor and stares straight ahead watching the red lights streak by in the darkness. The train rocks her away from the seat and back; she rolls her spine along the plastic to absorb the motion, taking it away from…

Biblos Melas

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While laying in his hospital bed recovering from a minor heart attack, Professor Martin Hellman reads details of an ancient book he has been given for translation--Biblos Melas, or, the "Black Book." Excerpted from the forthcoming novel "Minion Web."

Below the Surface of Things

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the heartbeat, the pulse of the darkened earth

Brand

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Nobody buying...

Little Max

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“It’s not a bad preschool. You kinda get used to it. You ever been to one before?” Little Max asked the new boy, Sam. Sam shook his head no.

The Generosity of Perishable Objects

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"As soon as you're born, they make you feel small."--John LennonI cannot do anything about how beautiful you are, my sour flower, but I can tell you this much: Joni Mitchell is better than all the cowards in the world. They all chose to somehow…

robin

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(v 1: I picked up a robin yesterday. It was red and puffed and in the middle of the road in front of the car on the way to the grocery store. I put on the brakes and turned on the flashing red light to signal my stop. I picked the bird up and moved it to the side of the…

One-Sided Conversation

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[I STILL CAN'T GET THE "CENTERING" FORMAT THINGEE — WHAT? "JUSTIFY CENTER"? THAT'S WHAT IT'S CALLED? YEAH — THAT ONE! TO WORK! WHAT THE—]

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.

Opportunity Cost

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What else could I be doing right now,Besides lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling,Looking for patterns in the colors and lines on the tiles?Looking for you,Immobilized,Succumbed to the siren song you sing.Lured to slavery,Yet you are free,Wild,Unable to be…

He Invented Carbon Dating for Seniors, and Couch Potato Chips

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I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora, gray beard and long scraggly gray ponytail, who had empty chairs pulled up all around him, at the Loser Café, maybe for his imaginary friends, or maybe those who were already gone.

Your dog, or hazelnut gelato - which would it be?

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It’s hard to lose. Harder than you think. I guess the ultimate question is: If I had to give up one thing, my dog, or hazelnut gelato, which would it be? I’ll tell you, between those two, it would have been easy to choose. But losing you, that was a who

Tuna Casserole

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I remember when I pulled in the way the car door sounded When it yawned open. I think it may need some oil. In the dress you just bought, With one golden flip flop dangling from Your big toe -- The other under the bench, you told me. "We'll be having a …

Lapses

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The body does what a body must

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…

The words you are known by: To Mitt Romney on the eve of his national convention, a cento

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I'll tell you what, Rick, ten-thousand bucks? [But] let Detroit go bankrupt. I'm running for office for Pete's sake,

birdbrain

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feathered flightless freak of nature

Beauty Fell Through the Roof

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Yet tenderness resided here among the canvases, the tubes of paint, brushes, and candle wax; the splatters of discarded ideas. We made love the way people said prayers