Most read stories

NEEDS FROM THE FOREST

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Holly Hope had met Latest Girlfriend once and was pleased to see that the woman wore stylish dresses, even if the end results looked like Liz Claiborne had tried to clothe a cigarette machine.

The most tender thing

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

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.

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.

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.

Come and be a part of it!

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Do you want social justice! Do you want a good and fair world!

The Open Perch (Valentine's Day Challenge)

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… in truth I am not waiting, but also flying in my soul to meet her, a journey that has taken me across the span of my own lifetime and the gulf of that same mysteriously mapped universe.

Poem for the Poet

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for Bill YarrowPoetry is a way of breathingagainst the enemy's chest withoutlosing consciousness again. Itis a ghost dance. Poetry is tobe determined by the plight of bees.Poetry is a waterfall ona mailing list. I've never tasteda finer whiskey than poetry.Poetry is half…

Shrine

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My tongue is clicking. I want to act out. I want an unprofessional bargain.

Hunting the Thylacine

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“Ah, there’s the Tasmanian tiger,” the visitor says in an American accent, maybe midwestern. “It’s called a ‘thyracine,’ right?” “Thylacine, yes.” “Un huh. Thylacine. Extinct now, isn’t it?” “Oh! Let’s hope not

23rd Psaltery

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The Lorelei is my sherris ; Ibibio shall not want. Head count maketh me to lie down in green patchwork: Head count leadeth me beside the still watercress. Head count restoreth my sounding: Head count leadeth me in the pathway of Rig Veda for his Namen…

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

3 Haikus for Dutch Kickboxer Gilbert Yvel

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silent black badass unstoppable foot of God now the sweetest sleep

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

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,

The Last Birthday Party

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The boy giggled, splashing his father and howling at the cold.

Hearts in Exurbia

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Silent Murf was largely toothless, and the gaze from his eyes diverged in opposing directions; his skinny arms were a fancywork of jailhouse tattoos and what appeared to be scabbed-over claw marks.

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…

Her blue eyes floating on twin clouds of innocent beauty

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The girl I sat next to said she had just looked up in time to see it, Randy, and it was quick thinking that you avoided it. Randy said he nearly missed it and commented on how Judy was the only one in the world who could discover plastic bubble paste, bab

Eyes that Said Don't Leave Me Here

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Two friends follow the train tracks by their neighborhood.

Just One Sentence

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Blinking, Eleanor frowned at the words she’d uttered. They were absurd… foolish. Unequivocally unscientific, but beautiful nonetheless. The notion of the sunless hours embodied as a clumsy artist struck the student as interesting.

The Spirit Upwelling

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Too late, I feel a bite under my left heel, but before I can look, I blunder into Robert and Paul rolling across the bedroom floor. They knock me over like a bowling pin, and I grab Robert’s hands and try to pull them from around his father’s neck.

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.

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.

Central Washington State On Five Dollars A Day

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The tailfins of our ’57 Plymouth Fury dip and rock from the stress: Three boys—say no more?—jumping into the car. And Dad, loading suitcases into the trunk, working them around the steel cooler heavy with Cokes, root beers, ice. He slams the trunk lid dow

The Other Side

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Rodney & Chelsea

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Chelsea's breasts are more the size of tangerines, but he likes them. He likes that she smells like Fruit Loops and that her front teeth overlap slightly. Her mouth is glossed. He slips his tongue inside.

One Dead in Violent Crash

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

Animals in Reverse

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She was still alive when I started to write the story of her life, called Lucy's Story, about her recovery from catnip, but it was not the real story. In the fake story, she took the subway to A.A.

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