Most read stories

In the Sun

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The light was bright andthey sat on the railing of the long wooden bridge in the sun. She looked up at her father."Oh Daddy, where did you go?" she asked.He was young with black shinny hair blowing in the wind. "To Heaven, little girl,"She shook her head."What's…

The Pope of Rock and Roll

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Pope Leo XIII endorsed a cocaine-based drink and at the age of 90 sat in on a session with a castrato that is still available on CD.

A Message in Red-Brown Style

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The important thing is to repeat the keyword

Warm Day, Virus City

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From inside the baking hot car we watched our father, nervous in his face mask and gloves, step through the wooden gate into grandma's front garden. She was waiting for him, thin and lonely behind the frilled lace curtain. She held the iPad in her left hand, and she…

Wanting to forget

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I do not want to know what it looks like when a society walks off a cliff's edge,

Twister

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“You know this is your death car.”

The Garage

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My life accelerated by grime in my father’s garage.

Entering Massachusetts: Please Don't Hug the Republicans

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I omit the names not to protect the innocent--there aren't any--but because you've got better things to think about in the run-up to the Super Bowl, like does anybody ever pull Troy Polamalu's hair in a pile-up?

McGrath & Company

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“I dipped a Camel cigarette in ink and smoked it,” he said. “When they took an X-ray, my lungs looked black."

I Said God Damn

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the space between two antelopes is a canyon,

Go Ahead, Be the Opposite of Love

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"Living is easy with eyes closed/misunderstanding all you see.'--John Lennon That's an ache that's always inside me. How you'd rathertreat people as if they don't matteras much as some nice sounding words in a song. Their voicesas less than an annoying wind? Because…

The Bet, Forever Boy, and Dangling

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a boy with a gun, a skateboard, and spray-paint

The writer as pugilist - one more time

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I'm cool. You're not. Attitude is everything in life.

The Frogman

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http://www.punchnels.com/fiction/the-frogman/

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Writers

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If you want a nice meal, writers take you to diners. They’re thinkin’ noirly, you want something finer.

What They Heard

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There's nothing so new in the doing that it needs to be talked about in just spooky or secret ways, by you, me or anyone else tonight, but it might feel real good sometime and perfectly fine to hear…

Pink Tights, Tu-Tus and Schmaltzy Music

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And then I get a call from a different kind of bar They say you’re drunk on Cosmos and actin’ quite bizarre.

Post-Revolutionary Sports Boredom

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It isn’t easy being the #1 Jewish lesbian revolutionary bank robber in America–every Rebecca and Rachel who comes down the pike tries to knock you off.

Picking Strawberries

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Underneath the fence she picked strawberriesThey were nickle sizedand some were red, some were green and some with a littleof both/in between They came up from the ground in little patchesand sweetness could be smelled on the windAs the cloud cover came…

Big Blue

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Standing on the edge of the great shelf

The Theory Behind the Statue of the Unclothed Horseman

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With his toga thrown over one shoulder because it was so hot out which has led to various and sundry theories of the naked centurions riding on horses in this manner through some unimaginable desert on a long march or even along the banks…

Feline Impediments to a Sunday Nap

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The two cats begin to circle To better make my surface workle. They treat me as (this makes me sore) Floor model in a mattress store.

The Men on the Moon

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It was a gesture on their part, an act with meaning; they didn’t care about country or science; their love was their art, their art was their love.

The Caracol, a snapshot

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waves assaulted black volcanic rock in briny harmony

Intermezzo

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Outside, Santa Claus has put on cat eye sunglasses and lights a cigarette.

Freedonian Nights Ring With Songs of Bitchiness

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By day, Ksiusha Milda is a housewife with a one year-old daughter. By night, she is a blues singer of sorts, a practitioner of this country’s traditional folk song, kale.

The World's a Beautiful

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box of wild animals in a tiny window and not just because you're in it, too,but I can't really imagine its twirling around and around like that without you. The sleek massive bodies of sharks too are beautiful in slow motion rise but…

consolations from Cold Mountain

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not otherwise employed, writing verse,/ line by tenuous line the substance of pulse./ ―but no one collects unemployed verse:/ self-lacerations must yield blood, not ink.

Why Is This Woman Smiling?

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Because someone whispered Mona Lisa in her ear.

Crosses

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Crosses sitting on the hillside