Most read stories

Starfight (working title)

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In the sky, like it was a big movie screen, two ... well, she didn't even know what they were, but it was clear they were fighting. The one on the left, which looked something like a man, was dressed in some kind of loose blue and red tunic with baggy pan

Disassembly

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Maybe the thing is over by now. They have gathered up all the pictures and mementos of our dad’s life and hauled them away.

Ten Minutes in the Life of Franziska Kafka

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bullet points about her soul

Glass

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Her bulldozer of a husband died five years ago.

Dragonfly

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You surprised me then, / climbing onto my finger: / climbing into my heart. / Your long, cobalt body felt weightless on my hand.

Breaking Eyes

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-No, just drugged, I remind myself. The hallucinations are more real, more accurate than before. While the dreams get more nightmarish, the hallucinations get more nostalgic. I prefer the nightmares. No one knows if this treatment will work, but what bett

Peace-keeping (Valentine's Day Massacre Theme)

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So they told him he better get ready to join the army because that’s where it was at, for him. After all, not everybody could split coconuts with their hands.

Legend

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My half-brother Salvy laughs each time we meet here at the hospital to visit our father Phil, who has lung cancer. He laughs because Phil married my mother, not his. He laughs at my job in Valhalla, the final resting place for those who lose at the…

The Goodbye Meets the Hello at the Station

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"You come to nature with all your theories, and she knocks them out flat."--Renoir "Dreaming is free."--Blondie "I can't vouch for my ability to avoid dullness..the odd position in which poets find themselves explains their often-sentimental identification with the…

Whites in Hot Water

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To his astonishment, he discovered Maggie curled up inside the Maytag dryer, head down, shoulders hunched over.

One Cent Baby

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Yesterday, I ripped off Dollar General. Today my baby died. Tomorrow I will file a lawsuit. After all, someone has to pay.

Drinking an Orange Julius While Listening to Pink Floyd

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I was strapped for cache

Ants

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I don't know what happened to all the men. Used to wonder if they killed them all.

Smiles are for Suckers

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I walked her home. She lived eight blocks in the opposite direction of me, but it made her smile —I made her smile.

From the Kitchen of my Childhood

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An ice block heart rushed home to the beat of its melt.

Frozen Chicken

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One of the pieces, I noticed, had the real shape of a miniature chicken, its mohawk, pin legs, and small definition of wing. “Look at that,” I said to my friend. And just then, the wing twitched.

The Party

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My wife tells me I should marry Pam. “She would be good for you,” she says.

The most tender thing

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Somehow, I have your body, but you’ve gone missing.

The Thing on the Stair

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Autumn brings It

FENG THE CHEF REALIZES CHINA’S NOT BUYING SALMON FROM NORWAY

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China refuses them politely, politely in that Communist way of saying without saying.

One Dead in Violent Crash

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Death came to my street, but I did not invite him.

Evil Humors

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I blame it all on evil humors. Something's leaking.

The Other Side

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Margaret’s Mermaid

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When she was eleven, Margaret still believed in mermaids. She would fasten the neon diving rings that her mother gave her to her ankles and swim around in the pool for hours. By the end of the afternoon, with chlorine-swollen skin she would wince as she…

The '08 Campaign And the Crash

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Here's the '08 presidential campaign in a nutshell: The Dems couldn't dredge up a white guy that even the dead in Chicago would vote for, so they went with Obama. Meanwhile, the GOP couldn't dig Reagan up try as they might,…

How Poets Die

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Mark Strandover decadesa steady diet of dictionenlarged his heartone day it just burstRobert Frosta crazy ideathat he couldbuild a wallwithout mortar tookpossession of his mindhe piled stoneon stone higherand higher untilthey toppled overcrushing him beneath Wilfred…

Strobe Genre, Utah!

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Co-polar order spectrum; strobe genre (the disco light of the 70s illumining and eclipsing fiction-non-fiction-non in one "article"); UTAH! a jump from forehead-down to standing fast, a cheer, for genre studies.

Break Time in the Army Corps of Engineers Mascot Lounge

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The Army Corps of Engineers spent $92,000 in federal stimulus money on costumes for mascots such as Bobber the Water Safety Dog.

Heels.

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Why am I attracted to this girl? She’s beautiful. Only five foot four, but still looks skyscraper tall thanks to those skinny greyhound legs of hers. She told me she used to dance, then giggled and said she hadn’t since she was five years old.

Water for Old Bet

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Why, I tell you, one run through that song, I’m always about to find my way out. But if this happens just two more times now, I tell you, I am going to go out and start something. You can’t treat a man like this. Even if he is smaller, like me. Why, I