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

almost a still life

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(a sidewalk poem)

No One Is Listening

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Bum on a Parisian stoop begging with his big Jackson Pollack bare head in the rain The water running in streaks all over his brain reminding him of a painting he once thought of Man standing outside a bar talking to his own reflection

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

Perquampi

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If anyone should wonder whether a purveyor of weekly ghost tales on television ("A World Beyond", which I host, was rated number six in fall of '55), might come to feel undone by a case of extradimensional foulness, they shall herein find their answer.

The Party

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

Why do I put up with this woman?

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She doesn't even know who wears the Adam's apple in this house.

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…

Ants

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

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…

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.

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.

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.

Drinking an Orange Julius While Listening to Pink Floyd

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I was strapped for cache

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.

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.

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

One Dead in Violent Crash

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

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…

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.

Evil Humors

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

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

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.

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,…

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.

Like Jeremy Irons

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Usually, you shop around carefully before condescending to see a new doctor, but this time you go to the first gynecologist who would have you, who has time available. Usually, you refuse to see a male doctor (you hate having male doctors!) but this time,