Most read stories

13 Halloweens

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1. The Walking Heart Attack Man has two outfits. In the summer he dresses in a short sleeve checkered button down shirt and high waisted Bermuda shorts with sandals. In the winter he wears dark pants and loafers with a gray corduroy coat…

Before and After

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My heart beat someone up the stairwell.

Quiet City

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I hope you'll have the time to read this before your attention wanders.

Animus and Vitriol

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At some point, we will have to shoot them/ through the eyes and skull and heart

Iowa Voters

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I miss my fire from the first three races

1918, 1944, 1991, and now

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Disability is indivisibility—all of us could be its members—unlike its affirmative action forebears who remain underrepresented, even as the groups’ selected contestants prepare to retire early, a distributed group whose specialty is American anthropology

The Garbage House

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If you don't know what you're getting into maybe you shouldn't take the job. Driving in the rain with the windows open, holding your breath for minutes at a time, sticking your head out to gasp for air, you begin to understand the depravity to which people in poverty…

Major Chaos

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Major Chaos came here one of those hot days. I was washing the floor, wearing old clothes, when he knocked on my door. Since I don’t have many visits, I let him in. At first, he seemed like a soldier, but upon reflection I realized he was a big green fr

Some Kind of Compass

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if we stare into the dark long enough, we see ourselves at some end or beginning –

After this last death,

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After this last death, I lose at musical chairs. Rough strangers shove me toward the carved door. Feeling fierce, I yell, “Don't push me!” House racked with noise, smells, rushing, I turn the…

Everything I Have Is Broken

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My mother’s old china no longer reflects. It’s value is now estimated as drywall.

634 Orchards, fruits & forestry

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The juice that stays on my neck when you tip me back, catching me in an alleyway, holding me upright as the oranges tumble and strike the backs of my knees. You cup your strong-smelling, sticky-soft fingers around my ear and say let's blow this city.

Zombicil

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I’m told it hurts. It hurts more than anyone ever thought it would. Every light in the room blinds you. Every sound in the room deafens you. The pain is excruciating as muscles and nerves that aren’t meant to work anymore are forced back to life i

Talking about a Friend Over a Cup or Two of Coffee

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Talking about a Friend Over a Cup or Two of Coffee “Their first fight was over school lunches. Free school lunches. She taught Kindergarten in a public special ed center for emotionally disturbed children. The…

What Einstein didn't say

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First you must accept / the speed of light as constant. / If you can’t do that, stop reading.

Merry-Go-Round

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“Stop!” I shouted. “I want to get off!” The toothy horses showed me the whites of their crazy eyes. “No, no”! they chorused as they whirled around and around and around.

21

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Five girls wobble into the train car. Their blistered feet protrude from the bedazzled straps of their sandals. Conductor: “Girls in the back with the open containers, you can't have those on the train.” A heavy-set girl in a belted yellow mini-dress…

The Empty Bed

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But by day the birds / of prey were in control.

one dozen haiku

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strumming on the pipe/blowing on the lute's body/drumming on the horn.

Poet Begging on Subway Car

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The subway train pulled up and I shuffled on board. I announced to the whole subway car: “I’m a poet.” And that was all I needed to do. It was like a miracle. Someone got up immediately and gave me her seat. People got in an orderly line and began

Open Orchidae

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But Jana insisted to see this miracle, this antidote for the mundanity of existence.

Training Exercise

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The other day I’m in the backyard with one of my kids, doing what he’s calling a training exercise, which is basically the two of us with flashlights, shinning the beams over the grass and up into the night to see what we can see.

Camp Atheism

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We are not alone, not as alone as we think.

X

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We draw a treasure map in the sandwait for the waves to wash it awayI ask you not to leave me stranded hereIf I'm bound for hell, I don't want to be left behindThe sun breaks through the edge of infinityspills over the line, soaking the sky…

A Good Wife

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"How did you know he was a nobody if you didn't look at him, eh? Did you raise your eyes and look him in the face? Are you my wife or a whore?"

Tainted Love

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...skinny love, skinned and thinned weak broth love...

The Beatle Suite:7 Beatle Inspired Poems

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I took 7 Beatle Song Titles and Made 7 Darryl Poems Out of Them"Some musicians heal ethnic groups. Some musicians heal nations. The Beatles healed an entire planet."--Joe Queenan"There was adventure,knowingness,love,and abundant charm.From any angle,they are the…

Abomination at the Shilkie

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That I own one of the world's largest collections of occult references, including a clutch of rare and ancient grimoires, ought to suggest I'd have been prepared for the shock. But nothing in my studies left me meaningfully prepared. . .

But Not For Me

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So when they shake a finger, when they yell, she remembers Miss Whalen saying, “It’s not for keeps.”

Rabid Atween Da Erz

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yoo evva kizza rabid atween da erz? end chee siz NO end din yoo siz yoo wanna kizza rabid atween da erz? end chee siz OK end yoo pull yoo