Most read stories

Karmic Rip Cord

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For the kid in me who fell head over heels all the way down the stars, I wonder where you are now. Slack is harder to cut than you might think, I have learned. And assigning the middle finger its true purpose keeps me pretty bus

Excerpt: Reykjavik: A Novel

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2. Reykjavík - 1986 …

Uncertainty Principle

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Aleister Crowley walks in and all of a sudden the bar's filled with angels and demons and pagan things. Wood nymphs and stuff like that. Wittgenstein, to his credit, keeps cool. He just stands over there next to the dart machine, pointing at things and naming them. Like…

The Pheasant

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Times they were a blazing, the Pheasant met God in Piccadilly meadows

Love Letter From a Content Writer

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This was supposed to be a love letter written by a content writer, then it just got weird.

Annabelle

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Jess threw her books on the bed then grabbed a notebook from a shelf and slammed it onto a writing table. It made a hard pop gunshot sound. Flinging open the book, a page tore. Her diaries were named Annabelle. It was with a blue felt tip pen that she wrote: …

Nope

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Can't cope.

Broward County Love Song (flaxen from the sun)

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If the little buildings had hair the hair was as if sleeked back some and also flaxen from the sun. Men walked past there and of course women also all in the requisite wear of the world. We dashed felt pens on curb-sides writing our names in the world and way in behind…

Judith

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“Hello. How are you?” “Me? I'm fine actually. Just sitting here in this little coffee shop. Sipping my coffee. I like it black, did you know that?” “Like your men?” ‘Excuse me?” “It's a joke… from…

again that summer

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And there was Kathi R in the summer of 1969. She was from Wheaton. We had tons of unprotected sex that summer. She was short, almost no breasts, but man, she could reach down behind me somehow and grab my balls at precisely the right moment, and bam, ba

The Gift

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There is no need to worry about art. Art in its ideal forms stays safe. Real art resists being the object of attention. It directs your gaze, and it swings in you forever.

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.

Blind Spots

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He was twisted...

Cocktail Pianist

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It seems the law of gravity will exert its influence even in such mundane matters as the afternoon rush hour.

Killing Dennis Gauda II: Dennis Gauda Strikes Back

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“That's Governor Gauda to you, punk!” This is the line from my speech “Killing Dennis Gauda.” The speech lost the Tall Tales competition at the division level, but I was unfortunate to have a chance to do this speech for Dennis Gauda …

Lalla, Chuckachucka

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He cut the heads off, and in doing this, their eyes came off. He placed the four discs on the windowsill next to the petrified avocado pit and Chia Pet clay shell. The eyes glittered like globs of jam.

My Life As A Series Of Houses (1968-2012)

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One night just as I dozed off I was awakened by a circular saw going right next to my head. The coke dealer was working on his deck. His hair was biblically long and he wore a pair of goggles as he worked on his patio utterly oblivious to my presence just

Downtown

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From the parking lot to the stadiumdown town waiting for the crossinglightthere are a few others in jerseys but not manywe are too early for that.Desert gravel crunching scuffle of canvas shoeskicking granitehop along wobble steps and I turn to seewho's off the…

Nepenthe

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Alas, the wind, the rain/ and plate tectonics take temples,/ fire and sediment papyrus and clay,

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Unnamed

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The child was delivered, set to breathing, and whisked away before Fae Anne could even catch a glimpse of her.

Robin Eggs

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"The sheriff's mother-in-law made the smoothest 'shine in the county."

Vertigo

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Manicured to a T

A Ruckus Needs To Be Raised, or Caused, or Raised

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Either a ruckus needs to be raised Or a ruckus needs to be caused I began chewing the locks of love Off the fences and the gates I was so outraged At the horrible academic trash If they had found me doing this They would have hauled me a

observations on an autumn day

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macho bucks in velvet defy you driving down the lane

Credits

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I fuck myself. I say never three times. There is a movie in this movie in this. I say hello. Fish are named after capitals of invisible cities. I say so. There is a movie in this movie in. I say flush for a dumpster. The sound of a sound never made. I say equations for…

Rent

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My real parents lived about 200 miles in the other direction from where we came. But long ago I determined they were too real.

truth be known

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It could be there is a little me, somewhere, truth be known. One time in Laguna Beach I slept with a girl I met at this café, the Jolly Roger, I think, when we went back to my apartment and had unprotected sex. She said she was on the pill, but you neve

Resurrection

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The superhero is out there in the fields, discovering herself.

Woods

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We went to the woods to escape the failures that suck out your breath.