Most read stories

Let's Start with the End

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Let’s start with the end—death. Upbeat, huh?

From This Distance

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Can you remember how we could each disappear completely. . . .

among American gods

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in dark recesses of this morgue of earth / where beauty of the good does not compel, / where evil's horrors seldom do repel— / Americ gods reign o'er from birth to birth.

World

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Making me hate language

Bowling

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I had a dream about being in a vintage alley that had bowling balls with adjustable relations to gravity

'Shit-Stained Underwear' by Dick Cheney & the Fucking Losers

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"We run a family show, here — Christ! We play Juice Newton. We play Christopher Cross."

Ode to the Tampon (In the Style of Sharon Olds)

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Today I tweeteda picture ofmyself holding atampon. Yes,you read that correctly. It's strangethat we still talk aboutperiods in hushed tonesisn't it? Halfthe population goes throughit every month but it's notsomething we talk about openly.You know when you…

Through a Sudden Window

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There is someone looking for youfor himself or her. I don't know if they'll keep on looking forever when we live our present lives so far apart from each other. You might as well be behind a glass at all times. But I still would want that lucky…

Interview with a Jesus Lizard

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Interviewer: So, you walk on water, right? How is that possible? Jesus Lizard: Well, I only run on water, and upright on my hind legs. Haha, if I tried just walking on water I’d sink quicker than St. Peter!

Flesh Alive

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Rise up, carcass—march! / Naught is new beneath the jaundiced sun: / last of the last of Louis' gold, / light is sliced through clean / beneath flecks and films of time.

Pig Girl

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"In the camps we ate whatever garbage they gave us." This according to my mother. "We had no choice." But I had eaten pig with gusto at an anti-Semite's table. Somehow this had to be undone. Burial in soil was all I could imagine.

Hotel Venice and the Bohemian Blue

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“Time to check out,” I tell myself, looking at sailboats and surfers from the open window of my hotel room. I inhale minty incense and gaze down on a dark-skinned woman in a sombrero beneath towering palm trees. Laid out before her on a folding table ar

Skull of a Sheep: Revisited

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You are in a car speeding through Dublin towards the West year after year the journey uncoils past the same landmarks Kilmainham Jail strapped to a chair bullet to the brain on by the Rowntree Mackintosh factory where the black and…

so far from home

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Its colour a spectral silver shimmered in the pale afternoon sunlight which glinted on its small red and blue insignia so far from home. The landing stage of the unmanned Viking spacecraft had broken away from the main section on schedule before starting its descent through…

Meanwhile It Was Nuclear War

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“Whup!” he said, as a lorry pulled up in front. ¶ “Here’s your lorry.”

The Woman Down the Hall

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I remember years ago my mother saying to me, don’t get involved with the woman down the hall. She didn’t even know this particular woman; it was just a general pronunciation, that somehow being female and living down the hall meant bad things.

My Grief, All Mine

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Your brain was connected to your feet ...

The World is Full

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of birds. The world is full of snakes. The world isfull of mushrooms. The world is full of flies. The worldis full of bombs. Not so many trees. Not as many as you might think. The world is full of flowers. Notso many bees. The world is full of rocks. Some…

THE BOOK OF SUCH ~ a suite of poems

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A Being of Aether, who having appeared to me one morning, instructed me in the geometry of thorns. She seemed to be semi-infinite as her often melodious speaking voice was unimaginable in one direction and limited in another.

"Don't look so sad"

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I don't want to see her again. No more pain. This one has barely healed. It hurt too much on that grey day when she said no to my longing eyes. "Don't look so sad," they used to tell me. I'm taking a different road now, I make a detour, I avoid her shop and her silhouette…

Tales Told near Tsmebrovht-5

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“—but although we've catalogued instances of this on other planets, it seems never to've led to the global outbreak of psycho-phrenias and neuro-pathologies as those that plagued the Tiānxiàns!”

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

We Poor Splendid to Look On

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Leave us to hide our sundials in our caves— / discard our scrolls that guide no more, / to time our nights to learn if we can grieve / —we’ve too much noise or less than we can hear . . .

Barely Spring

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On a business road

Christian Bell vs. Sleep

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Christian Bell can’t sleep in/on the following: airplanes, car trips, couches, first nights in hotels, jury duty holding area, commuter train, work breakroom, tent, park bench, the ground.

Kevin Kavanaugh RAPED Deirdre by Swimming NAKED In Front of Her When No-One WANTED It!

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["And you can tear a building down ... but you can't replace ... the MEMORIES ... "]

Leftover Author's Notes

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#281: If you make it to the end on this one, I'll send you $1,000 in cash and a bag of apples. Your choices are Granny Smith and Fuji. I can also pay you in euros if that helps.

Repetitions

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The couple sit at an outside table at McDonalds.

Let it Rage Until

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Let it rage. I shall not suppress you. Let your rage speak to you of the sorrow it hides, until your sadness swallows you whole.

Meeting A Praying Mantis

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A Praying Mantis clover to bright emerald green landed on my sleeve and lingered as I worked in my hay field.