Most read stories

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

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Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

Trumpet Voluntary

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"There's a concert next month," Sherry said. "Why don't you come to that and I'll introduce you? Then we can go from there."

When the Ocean Was Ours

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The Ocean used to be ours. When the stars were still fire and they were the only light burning though the dim, hazy nights, the ocean was ours. Before the smog, and the lights that were carried by the men who rose from the sea, the ocean was ours. We…

Siam

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Our city is really two cities, conjoined. One lives during the day, the other at night. Those who live and breathe daytime air call the city by one name, a name which evokes the relative newness of the place, a name with words just barely invented.…

over me

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What you may see initially could be only half the poem. The rest is hidden.

See No…, Hear No…, Speak No…,

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“People are staring at us,” Cat said softly into Marcel’s ear. “We look like an interesting couple,” Marcel replied. “Of course people want to look at us.” Cat nibbled on that thought for a while. New York City is the kind of place where people ra

Balconies

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In a few brief moments the entire sky became full of this wetness and greyed to the point of almost blackening, and it was a Sunday morning, and the man thought that thoughts were strange things, because he had a piercing epiphany that there was no God..

ALL THE BASTARDS AND ME

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The apartment was a second-level place, so I went down the steps and looked through the stained glass window of the door. “Ah hell,” I said to myself. Raymond Carver and John Fante and Charles Bukowski were outside. I opened the door.

Pentagon City

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I had been in bed for a couple of days and by this I mean sleeping for fifteen or sixteen hours at a time. I don’t think that I believed in God anymore. I no longer knew how to stay awake.

Old Vibrations

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There's always a sound, something triggering the fear.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, 2

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I ran into Geary Marston in front of the French Hotel Café, across the street from Chez Panisse. I was sitting outside at a small round metal table. A girl that looked like a Degas model was selling flowers on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Her shor

That Crazy-Ass Willy Wonka Boat

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I was crouched under a bruise-purple sky on a field of battle. I held a World War I-era weapon, an ancient black-iron spear with a spring, and I was told to load balloons onto it without popping them, and then I was to fire the balloons at some unnamed ta

Abu Arif & His Daughters

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I cannot remember what the celebration was for, but the baby was at its center. We passed him around, a sweet smiling boy about seven months old. The age when babies can sit but can't yet crawl and their thighs get plump.

April

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A riot of greens

Liebe Grüße

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Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.

Here be Dragons

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Most nights while in his sleep, with his one good eye deeply shut, the old man can hear the whispers of the specter in the remote wanderings, holding the surrounding woodlands in its snare. The sound of it closing in, with the bones of the universe crushing in…

Tadpoles

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Whole frogs are/ too difficult.

Life as a Porno

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It could as well be late night infomercials/ saturating the screen// with medieval looking exercise machines

The World's Loneliest Girl

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Turns out it was you. But. You made it into the latest dumping ground in spite of their voted insults. In spite of being told you weren't even going to be around to be danced with. The loneliest girl now looks perfectly trim and trendy to all eyes.…

Winter Blues

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He told me he could feel an army of tears building up behind his eyes.

excerpt from a forthcoming novel

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I wriggled in the bed and felt the sheets soaked with perspiration. My arms were lined with tape and tubing, needles pressed in veins. I reached for the cloth again and again, and every time they stopped me. The hands that came were cold and hard, urgent

The Kisses of a Satyr

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“I better go. My mom needs me at home,” she says. Soft. Smooth. Firm. Sweet. Maybe I’m pushing too hard. I kiss her on the cheek and she stiffens in response. My heart bleats.

Purveyors of Leeches

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I am a purveyor of leeches. All my friends are purveyors of leeches. We meet weekly to compare our wares.

The Spaceman and the Venusian Vampire Vixens

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It’s late July, and I’ve just been given the assignment to cover Paganfoil’s ‘Warbird’ tour. To tell you the truth, I really loathe this assignment. I never, ever, EVER cared for hard rock or heavy metal or whatever they’re calling it this dec

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.

Doctor, My Eyes

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...it was just my heart stnging through my eyes...

The Yellow Butterfly

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Let whoever may read this know: I am an evil man, and I have done evil things.

Berniece

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"I expect 50% of the agreed fee. In cash.” I dropped the envelope at the designated spot and parked up the street.

Martyr

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The everlasting shone through when skirting the tenuous threshold of the two worlds.

Coast to Coast

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No one knows that, while the ex-Area 51 guy delivered his rant, Art Bell left the booth for a Diet Coke.