Most read stories

Automatically Writ between Meals

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The misspent effort reposed spontaneously, a prank worth ending with the dog letter: “GrrrrrrrR!”

Ice Cutter

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McMurdo Sound. Amundsen. Penguins huddled in a mass...

Space Pop #1

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The Starship Emphasis was not having a good day, as two of their crew members had already died of dysentery because someone shat in the water again.

The Straps and the Electric

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The winter sun was going down and she watched it out the window.Light like shards of glass,time had melted.It took hold.She was held down by brown leather straps and she couldremember the smell of incense and little hands and little eyesof an infant cold on the bed.She…

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.

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

no more than a scent

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Art evades me persistently.Tonight is no exception.Outside, the bitter wind blows:suddenly, an oddity comes to minda memory, a glance. A mid summer nightheavy and taintedunder the neon lights.A foolish smile invites me income through the threshold of sinshe appears to…

Ballgame

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She knew that she was bland and overweight and dull; that what was beautiful in her was locked away like a tiny maiden, far, far away in a tower, too difficult to find or reach. She must face her lot, grateful for her family and her work.

Don't Know What's Gotten Into You, Young Man

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I remember one of my old high school intellectual friends introduced me to what he called a real wild blond girl named Sally or Marnie or something that summer of 1964. She was tall and blond and thin and looked like a model. Boys were usually afraid to

Chicken Sexers Set to Go For Gold in London

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Green Ridge, Missouri features a horseshoe pit on the town square and not one but two full-time village idiots.

Mrs. Penfield

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Now her right breast was annoying her.

To an Unlikely Muse

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These frail things, swimming to shore, heads barely above the foam.

you are the stem that rises, in my dream

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In my dream I am the showy leaf, and you are the stem and you are the strength. I am the leaf turning colors, my face flushed, the blonde hairs at my neck, and there is the deep carnal twisting around your stem that sends me floating to the ceiling over

What It Took To Be God

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You had to put up with Sunday drivers You had to love children All children, all of them! This is what it took to be God It wasn’t fun You had to be patient, sometimes You had to pretend to look the other way You needed to lose your he

The Supporting Oscars

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Weekly game night for the Oscar Family. Winning is secondary.

In the Face of Death

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She put on her hat, and walked into the back area, where she found a locker that held her name badge and a tube of chap stick.

But the Sun Also Sets

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I’ve lost interest in the limelight since I’ve come to understand that I’m not meant to be in it. We walk past the Porker Palace and see crowds of the rich with piles of pig in their hands, stacks of pork piled up on their plates as they swirl amo

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

Sisyphus takes the day off

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what-ta-hell, fuck this/he snorts brushing/ the dust from his shoulders

Conference of the Birds

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If in the course of a discussion of improvements someone says: “I have no idea” in a particular way at a particular moment, “I have no idea” will migrate and soon lots of people will find themselves saying “I have no idea” again and again without knowing

A Poem Written About You Because I Missed You

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what i will always remember of you is of that singular sunday / when a black lock of hair brushed against your cheek

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.

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.

Izyum

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The fire was so fierce,so fair like an opal;the most primal burn."Death haunts these trees,"the woman said, as she held the potof beetroot soup above the fire.They spoke from the basement; living in the dark space,nerves too locked up to to look out the windowand…

Why is There Scientist Instead of Wisdom?

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Scientism/Natural Science is an Idealism:Diogenes is said to have refuted Zeno's theories of motion by taking a stroll. We must presuppose that there is such a thing as a stroll before there can be such a thing as a stroll. We must think that there is such a thing…

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.

Nuptial Indemnity

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She had a body like an upside-down viola da gamba without the sound holes, frets or strings. Full at the top, narrowing at the waist, slender legs where the neck should have been.

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

vers libre inexplicable, mock sonnet, half villanelle

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this vaudeville world has turned all into stage— / the message appears on each screen and page: / every domain and institution—staged.