Most read stories

Inaction (or a disease of consciousness)

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“... More weighty than wisdom or wealth is a little folly" (Ecclesiastes)

Smiling Lessons

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Wound up taking smiling lessons Six days in a row But they didn’t take All the people in my class They were so fake

Cut His Finger Playing Air Guitar

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How long to make something pretty?

Eating Crow

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I stabbed a man at the Blue-Buick Bar and Grill. This may not be shocking news, all things considered. The man I stabbed didn't think it was all that shocking, even while it was happening. I'd had a lot of those energy drinks -- six or seven -- even before I'd puked…

Spilled Milk on a Fresh Lawn

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What if it was all cut and calculated.

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

Lines in Contemplation of a Tragic Accident

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There’s Julie-she’s the cineaste– Au courant woman with a past.

Summer Party Advice, From Father to Son

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“Madras shorts with those candy-ass Brooks Brothers shirts? If you wear stripes with plaids, you’ll look like a TV test pattern.”

Old Man in the Tub with MacGyver

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One final herculean strain, if it didn’t kill him might get him at least to his knees.

The Runaway Train

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Me? I was a runaway.

Pimp and Circumstance

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You may want to know who wrote the book of love, but all I really want to know is who, who sprayed the dinosaurs with graffiti? Not some poser Not some Svengali Not some last minute giraffe Not someone from the all girl’s band kn

How to Hypnotize Women

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The irony is that Smart's work of self-abnegation has surpassed that of her erotic master; George Barker is largely forgotten now, while the reputation of Smart's one work of genius seems secure.

The Forest, and Other Shorts

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I am not thelargest animalin the forest because theforest itselfis an animal but I am theonly thing the shape of me ********************************************** Faerie She was tiny and bright andwhen I touched her…

Can You Imagine?

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“Can you imagine what we could have accomplished, if we would have just gotten all the fuckin out of the way?” says Doug Stanhope, one of my favorite comedians, and one of the most brilliant, harsh straight to point utterances, I've heard from anyoneWe…

The Thank You Parade

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Let's go now with those precisely marching shiny cloud band members, so eagerly clanging their golden sleeves togetherover there in the valley of new light, for instance. They can lift wholeoceans up, like baby children, for a seriesof smooches, all of…

8 zero+1 scarring digits tic toc glossie phanein and coy constellations or blood by boards avadhoota where no divine mthrs stay

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I am seven and it is in one of those spring stretches where temperatures proceed enough to make walking acceptable if not amicable. Pop cans and chip bags once boasting glossy surfaces and daring hues now faded to match asphalt fields. Other bits of things…

Hope and Fear

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She hears me, acknowledges me. She knows I’m bound each day, unable to make my voice heard. “It’s regrettable,” she mumbles...

Patio Joe, 55

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Patio Joe, 55 and constantly smelling of swill, got his name because he sold and stocked patio furniture at the neighborhood Kmart. With his pockets full of dusty rags and crushed Old Golds, he'd daydream about check out girls.But I suppose you'd have to call them check out…

Ice Cream

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"Great jog today," he said, "But the entire length of the run I'm thinking about ice cream and how good that is going to feel."

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

I've got to

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Growing into a new mold, watching our friendships fall into deep deep holes.

I heard you were a drinker

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Once we got to my house, Lynda had everything drinkable in the house open and in everybody's hands before I knew it. She tossed down a bottle of my father's beer, then started on a bottle of whiskey that was open. She took a straight mouthful and offe

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: Prologue

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My first and so far only visit to my homeland of Prague was first described to me by a tourist guidebook, which laid out many of the fundamentals one must follow while travelling there. It was pointed out, for instance, that we would be “unlikely to enc

Van Gogh’s Ear

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A drunken evening, both men soused and twitchy. An argument ensues with Yellow House roommate Paul Gauguin. The two dissing each other’s work like clicking beetles

My Girl

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I like you,But I don'tLove youAnd that bitchDon't love youEitherWhy don't you loveMe?I only love my sonWhat do you hate About me?I hate your nervousnessLack of confidence,I hate your glasses,U asked too many QuestionsReally?Yeah, reallyWhat do like about me?I like…

The Hot Earth

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don’t let them take away our youth, even if we have to beat the paint out of birds the way we did when we were young. I knew we could do anything, so let’s go back into that world and describe the new dawn all over again, even if we have to use the frozen

True Story, Every Word

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So, I see this is story one-upmanship now. You think you’ve got stories! Here’s one for the books. Here goes! In 1968 I had a day job as a payroll clerk at the Kroger Company, but, to maintain my glamorous lifestyle and my impressive efficiency ap

I Want a Lover, Not a Saint

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Her tits were perfect But came with a white picket fence Around them

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

The Tesseracts

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From 'Excelsior' (fifth section) - a poem in 9 parts. So this is what begins at thirty? Thirty-five, And waiting. Those make love with water mildly, they That sink and skim the tide's meridian fingers: Brown swans that bob the blue orb's plumbing sheer. So this has…