Most read stories

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

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

Past Forward

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Shivers of desire, bristles of knowing

Professor _________

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"First we’ll get a good workout at the discotheque where my lady friend works. Don’t worry, she’s already arranged for a friend of hers to attend so you won’t have to suffer the indignity of being a third wheel."

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.

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.

Construction

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A tattered bird had a made a tomb in tepid water, it was a puddle near the framework of a half-built room— but the soul's a swerving tunnel and the dead are waiting at the end: all sorts of animals huddled at the fringe where littered pine needles stand and creep…

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.

Life's Unfair--Period

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Darling, forgive me if I seem a dunth But why must your period come oneth a month?

From Eternity To Here

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I don’t know how the nights can be so long when life is so short. Can you tell me that? I always thought you were maybe fooling around a bit when we met, with that evasive bull about your initials on that brandy snifter, with that JAM person! I ju

George Santos' Dream

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he dreams of limp victims stepping out of the waves/ water draining from skin and hair

70,000 BC: What I Want

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I don't ask for much. No, don't grunt at me, it's true. Give me a smooth boulder and a stone I can hold in my hand for grinding, maybe a sharp bit of flint for scraping. A new stick I can dig with, my old one's really worn. Shrgk's mate just got her a new stick and he even…

I Knew Her Before She Was Kissy from Cadallaca, Even

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["Creed vs. discern" ... or ... "discern vs. creed"?]

[insert title]

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[insert short snippet of text]

I heard You Like the Back Seat, Honey

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It’s okay if you do

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…

Cleft-Split Rock

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Walking here with you on these narrow strands

GIVE FEEDBACK FOR START OF NOVEL

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Hi fellow writersThis is a proposed start of novel.Protagonist is Flor "the urchin"her grandfather, whom she hated when he was alive (and vice versa) is seeing her life from the void, he has died.Please offer any feedback or thoughts you may have, all are appreciated.Here…

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

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

Viva la Doglady!

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The dog catcher appeared to be trolling the neighborhood in his doggy death van.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 57

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

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

Homage to Elizabeth Jennings

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Barred from hotel bars and restaurants because you drank too much, you won the prizes but seemed to disdain the people who gave them.

inflamed flower of your youth

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What was it about you that so inflamed the flower of our youth? That you could touch lightly that which illuminates all splendor and simplicity? That you could reach beyond mere flesh directly into the gates of heaven, and put me there, floating within

prophecy of the playground

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they deafen you with cute / knive you with sugared songs / with machines turn love to silicon shit / hurl you at the god Fun / debrain you in their schools.

with and without absent lines

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Across the vacant vanished . . .

The Option Package

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he felt like ranting about cars.

Priming the Pump

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I saw Sharon one more time, in the summer of 1969, when man first set foot on the moon. I met her at that nightclub over on Hwy. 83, near North Avenue in Elmhurst where everyone still hung out from high school. She came back to the basement at my parent

Black Wheat, 5

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Maybe love shouldn't exist . . . If we follow this notion there is no great need Where does it come from, this great need? . . . If (it) is in the blood how do they get it out? If not, where is it If they do not allow thought