Most read stories

Toy

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In the store, multi-color kites dance along the ceiling. And in the costume aisle, a young mother shows her daughter how to tie her shoe. “Bunny ears, around the corner…” Glass animals shine in rows on high shelves. A boy examines lengths…

Map of the World to Come

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The middle finger talks of many things How I killed the moon But still drank the moonshine And how getting over her took Some bleeding from the soul Maybe it’s the Inner Face of Outer Space That worries me the most But what about the Fro

In Survival Bid, DAR Tries Fajitas 'n 'Ritas

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The DAR Recruiting Party included a martini bar, an eclectic mix of music ranging from Devo to Lawrence Welk, and “quoits,” a Colonial ring-toss game that newcomers play to win membership discounts and Talbots gift certificates.

Cloudstopper (poem)

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She was Clementine Cropper and didn't you know She's the one you remember when there's talk of the blow.

Hotel Venice and the Bohemian Blue

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“Time to check out,” I tell myself, looking at sailboats and surfers from the open window of my hotel room. I inhale minty incense and gaze down on a dark-skinned woman in a sombrero beneath towering palm trees. Laid out before her on a folding table ar

a prayer for lambs

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unsteady, they try to rise

Zombie & Zombie, Attorneys at Law

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“Are there really, truly zombies in Haiti?” “Bien sur,” he said. He had even seen them: affectless men and women with a deathlike pallor, high nasal voices, and the characteristic drooping at the chin.

Among the Missing: Family and War

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As Sebald says, I grew up in the shadow of war....

Mr. Softee is Driving Me Crazy

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It is ten days before the 2024 election.So I am right now alternating between biting my cuticles and sipping a gin martini.I'm reading Virginia Woolf out in the backyard.The neighbor is having roof shingles replaced.Banging. Banging...BANGING!It is 3:34…

the animal that's in me

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If I can’t lure you with this animal that’s in me, what can? I want to know. With this pain that was privately held for so long? That was acquainted with the fellowship of hell? I sang, I cried out when I was away from you, even while tossing and twitch

Alex

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When Alex says “sorry” in that barely disguised Canadian accent, we call him an asshole.

Swallowed Gulped Engulfed

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Last night the thesaurus exploded. Don’t ask how. It just did. Exploded. Burst. Blew up. Flew into pieces. Discharged.

almost

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The only time Terry and I came close to fucking, when she was still underage, I mean, was once when I went to see her at somebody’s apartment where she was baby-sitting. She invited me over to have pizza, I think. Of course, I brought beer. And we start

My Yoko Ono

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When one hears the siren call of artsy high school love, there’s not much one can do except go ahead and crash on the rocks, sending incense sticks and candles flying.

Valentine

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XO

not Baudelaire's “Beauté”

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I charm as any stone-sculpted dream: / men grind themselves to dust on my breasts / in solitude poets spill and spew / enraptured of my adamant clay.

The Pearl

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“An attractive woman is at a ritzy brunch. She’s drinking a really outstanding Bloody Mary and decides to try a raw oyster on the half shell.

Humans [a screenplay-in-progress]

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She BENDS over and retrieves a bag that says POTATO CHIPS on it. Her dress is vaguely sweaty.

The Wave

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Crispcrashingcoldan interlude from youThe pebbles pulled back and forthlike side stepping nailswhite frothan interlude from youThe sun likeA camellia for herCrispColddropsflicking on her face.An interludefrom you.

Music in Berkeley

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There I saw a woman with dyed long red hair Dressed all in furs and a short tight skirt Way too young for her age And she was banging a tampon on her leg At the performance of Ramblin Jack Eliot And no one got up to throw red wine on her Ful

TGIF With a Big-Balled, Yogurt-Eating Mouse

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“Why don’t you dump Mr. Fitness here and give one of us a chance?” a mouse says. “I wouldn’t fuck you for practice,” she says sharply.

And in Chicago Yet, and It Was 108*

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It was the middle of the night when she started hearing voices. She thought the voice was saying, “Hello Dolly, Hello Dolly,” and that was when she called the building manager. It was the middle of the night, but he came up to her apartment anyway, be

In Plastic

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I'm more ash now than cigar.

Rodrigo Ordonez, Boston Traffic Matador

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Ordonez gives me a look that speaks a volume–Volume 4 of the Encyclopedia Americana, Birmingham to Burlington, which includes the subject of bullfighting.

drinking together

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In fact we were all drinking together in banquet halls (on banquet ships) with an epic poet who invented things, made things up, while dying in thorough dissipation. Washed to shore, our souls with our lives, our shadows. And storms swept them away

How the Sixties Ended, a new echapbook online

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www.echapbook.com/fiction/ratch

The Great Pandemic Poem 2020

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First you had to have been there Because the air cleared up When the world stopped driving And the plants bloomed Bigger and brighter than we had ever Ever dreamed The sky was just a brilliant, pure Blue Like when God was born Now fo

Jimbo’s Wish

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growing up fumbling for excuses your fingers, clumsy littlepads of flesh you don't recognize a scatter plot of acnethat won't erase by mirrorwhy this scene doesn't workkissing the detachable lips of bobby-soxed methodgirlswho keep…

notes from a dream

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Sorry to disturb. Have you seen God in here?No, not of lately, no. Shit.Why, is it urgent?Kind of. Would a cup of tea be of any help?Always. Man in the living room goes in the kitchen, space and time suddenly shift, man in dream does not know where he is, man…

Geographies of Decay

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That morning arrived with the sound of steel pipe hitting the ground