Most read stories

Ode to a Shopping Mall

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In 1609 Ben Jonson was hired to write a work in celebration of the opening of a new shopping mall.

The End of History

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Well, I walked in on you, then you walked out on me And that was when it happened – the end of history And that should have been sufficient But I think you know it wasn’t I remember it was you who told me Dreams are only efficient when illusio

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.

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…

Testament Part 4 of 6

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We once saw giants in the clouds and in/ connected points of stars, and named/ them, gods. We placed them in their high-halled villas,/ on the mountaintop, to game and frolic

Savages

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Dream

Austin, 22

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A thrill seeker before midnight - but closer to twilight ...

Memories of the Beach

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The smell of Coppertone Suntan Lotion always brings back memories of the beach. I remember you rubbing it on my stomach and you kept moving lower and lower. I had on a bikini bottom (very daring) and you rubbed your finger all along the rim of it just a

Sonnet VIII, On A Lover's Birthday

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A short sonnet for my sweetheart's birthday.

Target practice

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...it didn’t take much to just toss it aside and muster up some fresh bravado.

Tough Guy

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He remembers his father’s concrete slab hands. Balled into fists they resembled kettlebells.

Agrarian Joys of Ornamental Lawns

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The leaves/ that clung through February/ fall, dung brown,

Mister and Miss Marital Bliss

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The canvas bag lay crumpled and moaning in the middle of the room as Mister and Miss Marital Bliss contemplated what to do to it next. Spots of deep crimson blossomed like spring flowers all over the white sack and a large pool had gathered underneath. Rivulets of blood…

Annoyance

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The men stir around so aimlessly

My Book of Frozen Ponds

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We broke our hearts rather than sit in your reversible seats with the plain brown paper packages tied on our laps, we did so together. You don't want to hear about that. It gets too close to the actual murder of love. I…

A speck on the wall

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I’m leaning into my freedom and will have you take your portable prison with you and you can set those four walls across town.

Cadillacs, Candy Bars and Boogers

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I won't ever forget the image of my father, behind the wheel of the Cadillac he so loved. Even as a ten year old, and more as an adult, I could never figure out why he loved that car as much as he did. I must explain that he was really my step father,…

Your party invitation just arrived (guest poem by Carolyn Martin)

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"I’d rather move a word around a page than raise a glass or pass a plate or work a room immune to poetry."

Stuff & Nonsense

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artifacts gone obsolete / miscegenating in suspension

Smite the hindmost of them

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“Hello, I’m Marlene, and this is April,” says the older of two women. Both Marlene and April wear ankle length dresses. The name Hester Prynne flashes through my mind.

The Joint is Out of Time: A Journal of the Plague Year, Day 108

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History in the unmaking.

Love Makes the Boundaries Disappear

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She was asked: “What would it mean to be in a great earthquake to you?” She said: “It would mean that I might never see him again.” Then she panicked. She came to me and said: “Do you mind riding in the other car? I have to ride in the same car wi

Chills On My Opposite Hip

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You gave me chills on my opposite hip whenever you touched me from behind, when we spooned under the rough woolen blanket in your basement. Whenever your essence touched my life like that. Just like when you said, “You came, that’s all.” That’s all? T

Black Wheat, 7

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They use people then throw them away They are after the image There is a desperation in (it) They behave as if they must have it It must be a drug to them Are they that able? . . . They bring it over here and then all they want is im

Against Nothing

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To be free of pain. Is that what we all want?

Tingles

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Your steering wheel is hot.You don't feel it though, I mean,It tingles some but it doesn't have that crawling, stinging feelingLike the way you'd feel it if they hadn't called.Not the way other people in Arizona feel it.You don't feel you or her or anything in…

The Silent Service

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Anxiety masked.

A Matter Of Convenience

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Every retailer within my five mile containment zone is consumed with my convenience. It is incredibly comforting, this suburban fixation with access, proximity, speed, and ubiquity. If Marx were hanging out in American subdivisions today, he would likely

The First Time. Maybe Our Second or Third

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She sat me down naked on a kitchen chair and fucked me in the dining room, hovering over me, then sitting down on top of me I was upstanding It was outstanding, raw, and exciting No children or adults around, or dogs, cats or birds, no goldf

sing your swan song

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They had to dress normal, my other boyfriends, be beardless, hairless, everything torn away, plucked, shorn smooth, because it elicited moisture on the tongue (when I was with you.) But I grew bored as the day before I first saw you.