Most read stories

The Garage

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

At the Cafe

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The light on his face from a lamp Felt hat with a black band Scrunched down The nose creating a strong shadow With dark, straight eyebrows under the hat Red and orange beard Leaning forward at the café table, watching A damp curl of ha

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.

The Frogman

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

(girls in their summer dresses)

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The life, the burning up that works up our loveliness, hot under the surface that is tempted to show forth its parts after being confined, enclosed, shut in. Beautiful honey-water sliding out of long bleak skies, after all the howling of our legendary you

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?

Reel

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

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…

BEACH

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It's just me.An October afternoon.Ocean and Ocean and Ocean. if you keep looking, down the coastthere is fog.Only fog and me and sea.I imagine him before I see him.Slow walk just above the water line, the fog catching up behind him,fantastical cape.The rational…

Where is His Grave

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She took a desolate road as the wind blew.

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.

Ticket

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Legitimacy is vorbei.

Fugue State on the Waterway

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I am so lost in thought as I ride out of the woods that I forget which way I ought to turn, left or right; this can’t be good.

FRAT JERK (1960s)

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I threw my cards on the table. The jerk was playing his classical records again. I could hear that lousy music a mile away and he was the kind of kid that makes your skin crawl. But he had a CD sound system and it was up loud this time so that the house

At Waffle House

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Staring at my $10 All Star Breakfast with extra bacon

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.

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."

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.

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…

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.

Wrong Number

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He tilted his head at his monitor and exhaled “No.” Minutes later, he tilted his head the other way and more sharply exclaimed “No!” Then he began over the next quarter hour simply to stare at the data stream before him, which left him speechless.

Denial

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Then for a few seconds, maybe even a minute or two, we wallow in a sensual shower of raw emotion. Our defenses are nonexistent and we are overwhelmed with care and gratitude. Suddenly, we love our enemies and are willing to forgive our trespassers.

The Endless Dream of Humanity

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Pigeons are really the souls of what were once beggars in the endless squares of Paris, Venice, or Jerusalem. They are born with the soul of a beggar attached to them. It is stuck beneath their wings. They cannot fly without it, and they ar

there was a shameful attempt to steal fire and now the vultures always come for my livers and my God I Am sorry

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The Divine and merciful Understanding Calls out to me But let me not speak its name. You are an unworthy hearer And I am a secret-keeper, cunning With keen thoughts and prayers of swift Justice Single is our thought and act And when we pray we know not what it…

With Egypt in Crisis, Biden Seeks Access to Intelligence Briefings

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"The President feels that Joe's talents are best used elsewhere," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "We had a lot of take-out orders to keep straight with everybody working late."

You Were On Top of Us Freely

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You turned to the beautiful youth because we were light, because we were so full of life that our skin alone could not seem to contain us. We were burning on all sides for the world. Shade, shadow — nothing. Nothing the moon. You lifted the cloth and peer

My Summer Vacation

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Apple is apple plum plum that is a kiss without a tongue

Intermezzo

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

Favorite Child

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It was in the early sixties when my mother discovered she was my father’s second wife. Four years before, they were married quickly, by a justice of the peace, because his transfer to the States had come through. He’d charmed her with his dark chocolate e

Why Is This Woman Smiling?

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Because someone whispered Mona Lisa in her ear.