Most read stories

Attraction In the Night

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Everybody was out on the deck and you could feel the deck swaying a little with the weight of all the people. There was loud music inside but it was too hot and nobody was dancing and they were all out on the deck. Lisa was out there and either she would not…

Wash That Man

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The washing machine at home was broken. It was an old leaky Maytag. A discouraging mess—twisted panties, sky-blue jeans, and an old lover or two or three floating downstream (the reverse of spawning salmon). Each man was slightly drowned,…

whose soul do you have?

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Whose soul do you have, now? (How many are you?) There are several around here running from death, laughing, whom you might know. I burned ahead, with life. I found my own haughtiness had little bearing on the unbraided thread of pleasure (when I wa

the return of Ulysses

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Then you came home from your travels and stole her, your new queen, though she was ready. And raped my heart as you entered the new passage to heaven. And I cried out your name on the river, and swam in the warm waters behind you, naming your new name a

The Empty Stool

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I walked up to the bar and sat down on the empty stool.“You don't want to sit there,” said the bartender.“Oh? Why not?” I replied.“It's haunted.”I laughed, but then stopped when I saw he was not laughing with me.“You're…

Mistaken

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Buzz.

The Window

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Out the window, the butterflyhad escaped,beyond my perception and maybe into someone else's.The little boy with the kite stared back,wound his string,and ended his afternoon.

77 Words About Nothing (Half and Half)

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Being forced to spend blood money on libations isn't stoic. It's shitty.

Islands

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Off of the northeastern coastline there was a series of islands that won bread and butter through fishing. We walked off the ferry and through various docks while noticing vessels come in slowly boasting sides protected by worn plastic fenders on ropes affixed to…

When Dreams Come True

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None of them knew the emptiness my bravado covered. I moved through life a pale shadow of a being. In the mornings I was afraid when I went into the bathroom to gaze into the mirror I would find no reflection staring back at me, that I had finally become

Lessons in Insomnia

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It’ll all make sense when you're sitting on an éclair chaise longue by the morning pool of coffee.

Jump-start

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"I don’t know what to do. I need to catch the 11:30 train, but what is the difference between doing it today or tomorrow?"

Thick Air

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The only thoughts that come are old ones that are so needy they keep circling through for attention

Writing Poems

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We bring words together and set them up on blind dates. Watch them build a history together, get married and fight together. Make offspring syllables cradled warm in cribs of punctuation. Phonemes squeezed into existence by two parenthesis. Words…

The Invaders

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“Elaine, what's that bee doing?”, asked Jonathan as he slid his reading glasses down and turned his attention from the morning paper to a bee that had landed on the his Nesbitt's Lime soda bottle. The bottle sat on the small, hand-made table in their back…

Cocktail Hour

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The bullet went past his right ear and a little star appeared, twinkling in the mirror, a small hole in its middle, before the boom of the shot filled up the bar. He put his straight up Grey Goose martini down on the bar hard enough so th

Year End Close-out

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Strauss does all the stirring at the start./ The rest is all murk and meander

Introspection

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The piss monster looks for clues of its childhood in the stains it leaves behind on the furniture.

Ways of Seeing: Carracci

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I have become interested in Carracci / Ludovico Carracci

Die Zwischenwelt: The World as It Is and as It Is Not

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These philosophic notions floated in my head for years and eventually helped inspire my pursuit of basic information in contemporary physics, astrophysics, astronomy, and cosmology when I was not reading or writing fiction or verse.

Surprise!

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We were fleeing Hurricane Katrina We stopped somewhere in Texas at a roadside diner But found a sign that said it was closed All of a sudden as we sat there in our car The shop’s owner knocked on the window And asked what he could get for us

Not as a Poet

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She's not a poet, but does she have to be? She comes to the reading to read the poems of her recently dead husband, for she made a vow: that she would read his work at an open mic. Now she is keeping her word. It's her way of keeping him alive or maybe it's his way of…

Dude Fish

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the wiggly word / floats toward the crowd

Ten For The Devil

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Horses pulled carts loaded with valuables at backbreaking speed. King Street was one of the steepest in the city making the steeds’ task most difficult in deed. Their chest covered in foam and their eyes wild with fear. Their clattering hoofs gripped

actual flesh

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With nipples like those, rose-colored, we could have fed a nation!

Never Sacrifice Yourself

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No matter how many times flies land on butter they will never become butterflies

Terror Management Theory: The Joy Knee

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I could reach out and grab this world by the p...

the musk and the drama

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Shame must search the soul, broken, original, with its primitive juices stirred. Moved until now only by the musk, only the stroll you lived with, the worry, the sorrow, the drama – may I never conceal or recover from it! Yes, I might beg or steal the

lepidoptera

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The little butterfly struggled against the wind. As little butterflies sometimes do. Tossed and turned around by relentless, uncaring gusts. The little butterfly would make progress, but then be pushed back. Tantalizing close to where she was heading. A…

"Happy Birthday Marty"

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The bum had abandoned More than half of his rich Chocolate cake In the bottom of the shopping cart The wording on the top of the cake read "Happy Birthday Doug" But it also read "From Doug" Either he was too full To eat his own words