Most read stories

there's a light moving toward me in the sky

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There’s a light moving toward me in the sky. How often at the edges of reason, the howling desire has taken me. Howling desire! How often it has taken me in its mouth, naked, and shaken me. And now there’s a light moving toward me in the sky. There’

The Theory of Color

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The story of the black pen drawing a dark hole makes everything seem so elaborate and obscure. Or even a seven-year-old leading police on a wild car chase to avoid church. Or naming a new band Fuchsia, which looks like the beginning of an

Slydexia for the Unimpaired in Eight Acts

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You tell its approach soon as veal resists both knife and fork, quick neutrinos land in internet ruby climes.

Ripple Effect

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I discovered Ripple (by that fine winemaker Gallo) in a dusty “specials” bin at the back of a liquor store near skid row, off Maxwell Street, downtown Chicago. You may remember me bringing these bottles home with their screw-off caps. We drank tons

the break up

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Well I, for one, knew immediately what these great muffled sobs were coming from the parking lot behind our apartment complex. This stud named Clint was dumping one of his girlfriends, again. Exactly how many were there? Could have been a dozen, for all

The Collector Of Twilights

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I like to collect twilights. I fold them carefully and put them in my wallet. They fit neatly between the dollar bills that have a weird tendency to curl. This bugs me. I don't know why they do that. Something to do with the design of the wallet. But the twilights fit…

In the Film Room With the Big Guy Upstairs

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It was a stupid thing, but one I'd gotten away with before. My bagel was stuck in the toaster, and I probed a knife down into the slot without unplugging the appliance. BAP!—sparks and smoke, and before I knew it, I was dead.

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

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“What the hell was that? Is that your take on The Deer Hunter?”

The Alarm

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Rain pours through the ceiling and the building's fire alarm sounds repeated bursts of loud abrasive distortion 1 2 3

Two Cents a Bale

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“Price has gone up,” Jim said. His head and his body were still, like a deer’s when it hears something. “It’s three cents a bale now.”

I Bought New Candles

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The candles and my brain flame like a torch

Notes from a Quarantine

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EnzymesI enjoy learning about enzymes. In the human body, they're catalysts. They interfere, breaking substances down so they may be sent on their way to accomplish a task. Imagine a cluster of construction workers; shit-talking, cat-calling dames, engaging in mildly (or…

Grand

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The garden grew tomatoes.

Pictures of False Hope

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We were busy painting pictures of False Hope on the face of Reality. Tattoos really. But they faded with time. And I now know this: Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora, gray beard and long sc

The Page Turner

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Her hands are swift and supple as swallows, bouncing off the keyboard in rapid-fire constellations of notes, because she's playing Bach's Concerto no.1 in D Minor, which is busy and prodigal and all over the place. She is Polina Olegovna Osetinskaya, a beautiful Russian…

Who's Going To Clip the Toenails of God?

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Who will plume the chicken? Who tend the little flower of the soft person? Who steal the pea out from under the bank while you’re holding it up?

Time

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Time is the / gravy of the bloody roast beef of / emptiness.

suggestive lipstick

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Maybe in some lie you told, your life began making sense. Not mine. But your quiet beauty may be what carries you. We have to both quit eating Couch Potato Chips, and read the book Tender Is the Squid, instead. Your ghosts – they’re so soft and sensitive.

Bearded Lamb

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I was bleeding from the soul It took its toll I fell all the way down in a hole I saw some burning coal I didn’t know where the hell I was Or what went wrong As I sang some unholy song Where I did not belong There was a frozen carcas

Birthday Makeover

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Iris is beside herself with excitement that the most popular girl in her eighth-grade class invited her to join her circle of friends after school. On the sound of the bell, she charges to the door to be the first out of the room and to race to meet Ange

Throw Away Society

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And this will be our testament

MS Fragments Retrieved from a Garbage Disposal

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Mrs. Death was walking in mountains where everything around was still. Mr. Death? —in another hemisphere, wandering (last she’d heard) through a vast forest.

Berkeley Stations

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or Hamlet,Great Denmark"No good can come out of this house of Berkeley, not ever, not to strut the great book of the world, or for any other discreet purpose." - the Upanishads "What is guile? Who is this Hamlet? Where smarts wounded Denmark? I need…

on Fox River

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We are on Fox River and I am in the dark water swimming naked beside Rick DeMille with my white skin glowing as we come up behind you and Sharon in your dad’s ski boat sitting silent in the water, and I can hear Sharon whimpering, “Oh, Jesus! Jesus!” as

Reunion

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Did we ever walk together long?We walked apart much longer. Are we the same, unsaid, Or more different than you imagined? Are you amazed I still stand, Here and in this room, So brazen to show my lined, scarred face, So bold to live and speak aloud? Can you…

The Silken(revised version)

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tentacles of stringy rains opens up the stage antics for this common February day to the fidgety audience at hand but it appears that they just won't be able to grab on, not this time. The familiar grumpy wind with…

A Day at the Fair

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“Furman lost all his money at a clip joint. I'm going to the office to complain.”

Perfect

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In the cafeteria we have the cheese fries. Sara's favorite. She eats with two fingers, pinching like a crane. Cheese drips and she licks the fingers. She licks the plate. She goes for it. Big Lulu, the cook, calls from the back. “That's what I like to…

Is That a Floating Postcard over There in your Shirt Pocket, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

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We came wind-milling together ,up and over the blue and yellow stone bluffs, like a couple of empty yet racing nowhere fast plastic grocery bags, catching onto everything and anything in our way, and desperately trying to get free again,…

Now's the Time: Three Women of Jazz Today

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The world of jazz resembles the Elizabethan stage: bare, unadorned sets, little of what is performed is reduced to writing, no, or hardly any women.