Most read stories

Winter-Logged Love-Fest

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it is a wonder that we are speakingyou and iafter the fall season felt hopeful.Now the words mean nothingmy fairy has taken a vacationand women sleep with men in nice suits.

ScarCity

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I flipped a large cardboard coin On one side it said Abundance But on the other side it said Scarcity I went to the store And began packing everything I could get Into my shopping cart But the things that started spilling over Onto the

five minutes

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one word prompts

A Tinder Ghost

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Do you know if you were actually speaking to me there?

Fun With Death at the Funeral Directors Convention

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“How about licensed-character theme funerals for kids who die young?” I asked, broaching a sensitive subject. “Do you think they’re”–I hesitated–”a money maker?”

Topsy Was a Flip Flopper

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Topsy was a flip flopper ... Topsy was a crazy complainer.

Dust

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It was the absence of small sounds he felt most. The clink of a spoon against china, a floorboard’s distant creak, the swish of that old, broken-toothed comb through her hair. A thousand tiny sounds that had proved he wasn’t alone.

Jasika by the Mountain

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There was the small wooden structure near the base of the mountain. It had weathered many storms and its walls talked about the scars of this. In the hills to the west various cries came out from feral animals that seemed to go linger that autumn. But it had been a…

I'm Just Not Interested

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in making your sad blown apart hearts rise up and squeeze out the kindness juices ever so sweetly anymore. Tried that. Didn't work out too well, not for me, wasn't a BIG time of waste, but did eat up some important wee…

Washing

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Scraping the baked on Bar B Q sauce from the grabbing ends of the stainless steel tongs has my total attention.

Orpheus and Eurydice

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This is hell amongst the bloom and grow. Spring's warmth is cruel, a feast of unrestraint...

Sonnet II

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When gratitude on lovers' lips rings false/ As flattery by courtly sycophants,/ Take care to well distinguish gold from dross/ So as to gild gladder remembrances.

Sinning and Sinning and Sinning

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Then I learned she was revealing all our sexcapades to this young priest. Forgive me, father, I have sinned. We had sex outdoors against a tree in Wisconsin and the tree was blending with our act and becoming one with my back rubbing up against the bark

Heroes

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no one told him there was a place where heroes died, but he should have known it was in love

Brother Dream

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It’s always daylight there My brother comes running down the sidewalk holding out his arms and calling my name He’s wearing suspenders. He’s gotten thinner in heaven He embraces me warmly wanting us to be friends I give up trying to resist

Schadenfreude

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It's 50/50 that you'll ever pad your knee enough to ever kneel on it. Your back hurts, the Orthapedist labels it arthritis. I think that means we're getting old, so I crawl up the tower of your body as I'm a little younger, more sprightly. You're a

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.…

Who Will Play Monica? That Is the Question

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It is absurd to think that a cockroach will wake up one day as a human. And it is certainly surreal to imagine that a fat pigeon in Paris, New York or Rome, say, or even Prague, will one day take up a pen and begin writing poetry, or wave the wand of phil

The Mad Ones

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On the parking lot of the bar, two in the afternoonYou notice the battered car, dented up body of a Ford escort,No hubcaps, plastic in two of windows,It yells a story to youA familiar storyHead into the bar2 O' clock in the afternoonIt's a nice, sunny, warm Saturday…

Hive

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Each brief life is lived in dedication// to the honeyed buzz of the colony,

Tell Me What Happened

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The empty faces in the crowd all mumbled...

Loretta McKinley

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After Loretta McKinley had sat for just such a time on a rock near the tribe, hallucinating and coming as close to death and God as she ever had, she walked into the camp and asked to speak with the elders.

Oh Captain, Good Captain: Part IV

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Oh Captain, Good Captain I went where you asked of me But now I'm back home And things are so clear to me The liquors been drained So my eyes have dried finally I'm seeking her out So her voice can stop haunting me When I see his face I'll…

A Story from the Diamond

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A sweltering heat sits on the field like a fog failing to move. From the diamond, you were able to see the Chicago skyline poking above the apartment buildings like antennas, sending signals all throughout the world.

The Calendar of Minutes

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He was prepared for this event.

The Story Teller

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I would read her stories on quiet summer days as we sat along the river, just the two of us stretched out in the tall grass, hidden in the shade of the pine trees lining the banks of the Mullica while a gentle breeze cooled our skin. She liked the way I read to…

On Strike in the City

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The first day of the Steamfitters and Pipewranglers Local 175 strike was exhilarating. Every man (accurate; there were no women in the union) showed his support outside the Willgarden High Rise Corporation's company headquarters on Fifth Avenue, shaking unreadable signs…

The Demon Rum

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the Coke made his butt leak blood

Six or Eight Legs

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I killed it. Didn't even relocate it back to its outdoor home, as I had work to do. This is being human.

Knowing

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I come here, to this very spot for a reason. Imagine — the illusion of knowing what is and is not. The contentment drops taste — one could suppose — like that.