Most read stories

Nepenthe

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

Event Particle (6)

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...something is pulsing in the shovel against the window and its pompadour of snow.

Sunday Morning Series- One: What I Learned in Sunday School

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I learned He was a Schmuck when, on/ the mountaintop, with Abraham,/ I waited on His call: one Isaac, neat.

Old Love Passes By Like a Landscape

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from a moving train. The lost ball inthe tall grass still wants for no one. AndI'm suposed to pretend? You got yoursmile from something, not someone. But it took all your long hair in the process. You've been looking for the one true grace, the ultimate…

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

Liberation, 2

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It was Phil Collins on MTV, “In the Air Tonight,” that helped cement it for me. It was the beginning of the end of my marriage. Well, not exactly the true beginning of the end. You would have to go pretty far back, honestly, to find the true root of it

Mountain godfather

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“Look them straight in the eye, keep your mouth shut unless spoken to, and make no sudden moves.”

The Sham Wedding

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Mary Jo told me to hire somebody to marry us in a ceremony in the living room up at the house on Fairlawn. This was to take place in two days. Her divorce was final, and she had to get married or else it was all over for her child custody. I guess I was

77 Words About Prowling At Whole Foods

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I prowl. You prowl. We all prowl.

EQ

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Breakfast in Prague on 9/11

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I was sitting in Prague having breakfast on 9/11 near the Astronomical Clock while the world was bombing ISIS the sons of ex-Nazis sitting at a table nearby and old apparatchiks leisurely eating sausages while the world took a moment to

Hotels (an excerpt)

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“Snobs,” our head housekeeper Denise called them in her deep voice, while peering out from under her glasses at me.

Puppet On a String

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Spring break that year, (1963) I spent nearly every minute with Lynda. Her taste for sex was unquenchable once we’d gotten started. We did it in every position possible. The sitting position in the front seat of the car, which my brother Herb had to expla

The Belonging

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I don't belong. I don't feel privy to grown up conversations, yet I can't relate to teenage expectations. I'm floating on the walkways in another dimension of time. Everybody looks like ghosts functioning in robotic ways. I feel an electric eye following me in my…

Moulin de la Galette. Renoir

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Light seen as sunlight through a Japanese shade Red through many of their mouths, and often their hair but also spots of a duller red on the back of this gentleman's coat and the back of his head The woman stares at him without smiling from thre

For Seven Days

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The fluorescents above a constant hum. A hymn. The child lay on the bed as the parents worriedly hovered. Fretted and dreaded. Tubes and wires led from the broken body to machines and computers that fed and cataloged every minute detail occurring in the collapsing system.…

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

The Pain of Memory

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It's awfulYou remember everythingYou never forgetEvery insultEvery bruiseEvery scarEvery burnEvery nickEvery blow You never forgetI never forget The pain of memoryYou think you forgetBut you never forgetThe dread of some wholly misfortuneThe pain that left you…

Oneiric

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- Of or relating to dreams

Facing Budget Cuts, Schools Hire Samurai Crossing Guards

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“Out-of-work samurai have a choice,” says Bobby Ito. “They can terrorize local peasants at county fairs, or underbid low-skilled workers for menial jobs.”

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

Exit Strategy

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I was still on track to be your average American with a six inch dick and a pair of sneakers.

The Museum of Inner Light

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On the way to The Museum of Inner Light Expect delays Expect bumps in the road Expect potholes and such Expect a murder of crows Rolling acorns over the rooftops But what I want to know is who Who eats a butterfly On the way to

Sometimes, It's Simply a Nice Dress

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Clarissa kept bringing up a particular subject in counseling. It seems two years before her affair, she had accused Jon of being attracted to her friend Steph. The evidence that led Clarissa to this conclusion, started at an office Christmas party. Steph reached…

Testosterone

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"All he wants to do is watch the Hallmark Channel"

Sparrow

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I don't care what my reincarnated self thinks about today. I'm already aware that everything stinks in the end. Well. It's supposed to. But all things must seek travel while they can. Dance while they can. Dream while they can. Laugh while they can.…

Caverns

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Naked chest, Naked nipples...

Nothing Beside Remains

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It was the early 80's My students carried / guns.

My Composite Girlfriend

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Her dad regaled me with stories of his up-from-the-bootstraps climb out of poverty on the hard-scrabble, rough-and-tumble Lower East Side of New York, where he founded the leading supplier of hyphens to writers of purple prose.

be kind to your pieces…/torn

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Pieces that said shrug a shrug and then another and one to right with the eyes that squint and one to left with rhythm that never left. And piece after piece, after piece they stich themselves, née weave a tapestry that is the dance your very walk swayed