Most read stories

Poetry, Inc.

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It comes to our attention you have what it takes to join our enterprise.

Salome's Dance

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Salome said she wanted the head of John the Baptist on a platter, adding the latter touch of finery for reasons all her own.

Spiral

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When collapse is a wave that curls the floor under itself I give myself to it

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

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

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 57

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"Ben! Ben!" yelled Monique. "Did you hear me?"

Black Wheat, 1

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They left their great need behind when they were taken out of the country They live without thought of that blood They do not respond to anything that calls to it They are shallow They feed on image (alone) Blood does not shake their heart

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

Tangled Up in Glue

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Shhhh, my husband is trying to write...

gravelortian part 11

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It's easier to sleep when the alarms don't go off

(One Hundred Minus Ninety Equals) Ten Jetpacks for the Lonely

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1. And so, another top heavy day within the sworn to camp enemies of a purely human musical swamp, who want only to own the essences of that ancient sweet fragrance, like all the others, and sell it back to us at a tidy profit, which…

re-homed

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aquatic, free-swimming or earth-bound

Left of the Miracle

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Wake me up on payday Don’t throw in the towel

Every Morning There's the Breast

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Every morning there’s the breast and the nipples of ecstasy It is not the spider’s fault that it is mesmerized by the web Blame nature, blame God Doesn’t the alley cat automatically know how to howl? Don’t blame me if I am addicted t

How the Sixties Ended, a new echapbook online

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www.echapbook.com/fiction/ratch

A Journal of the Plague Year: Day 237: A pandemic miscellany

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Wheel turning, round and round again

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

White

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Her mouth a wet tulip

No New Clothes for the Empress

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Because I was not sure if the poet had said yearn or urine, I zoomed in on her mouth as she commanded the lectern...

Friends Love

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She darted out of her shadow, deftly she maneuvers through the tables and chairs and their eyes follow her.

Puppet X, 4

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I'm not a practicing angel, ladies and gentlemen Got these penny wings out of boredom I need to know that black and grey place inside an angel where you bow your head, when a puppet forgets himself, when a man learns how smal

The World of Willy Gregg

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Death threats? Just another mumbling day in the world of Willy Gregg.

Mental Energy

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‎" You know, the cure is not worse than the disease" Leon said to his therapist for the fifth time.

Luminous Nights, 9

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Both of us agreed we needed to break up, and have some time apart before we ended up killing each other. Before Robbie left Chicago to begin classes out in California, he made a promise to me — that he intended one day to return and marry me. He sai

Ode to Monday Morning Without You

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The soiled concrete sings to me a symphony. / I try to place my ear on it but a millipede / enters my brain and consumes it: /

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

Flo Rida!

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Ida Ho

Cloud 9, Really?

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I wonder, just a thought Who even dreamt to Teach a pig Latin? And why a starfish Mirrors the stars We do not know There’s a whole lot To wonder about Like, I don’t know How about Cloud 9? I want to know what happened On Cloud

Late Afternoon in the Universe

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In the evening when the sun sinks low and the baths gets drawna tall glass of milk sits slowly spoiling and sweating on the cracked white window sill. And the kids walk across the grass.The birds send out their last farewell notes They sail on the infinite breath of…

Accurate Appreciations of Current Conditions

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I appreciated the abject abyss / of my blue bowl / this morning and made up my mind / to measure how many times / I stared down / the dismal, damp / drain for the day.

To an Unlikely Muse

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