Most read stories

Bitterness: Poem

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Standing hard at the windowCold clouds move, slowBlue horizon in the distance—It's just a slice of blue.All this beautyI miss it in the bitterness.I'm consumed by the missingThe emptinessThe unfairnessAlways some unfairness cropping upand capturing joy.Glancing high…

Estranged

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He kind of enjoyed living by himself. It was nice and peaceful.

About My Dad

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My dad drove a Model A Roadster and had a photo taken of him on a hunting trip up in Wisconsin with one leather boot up on the running board and a .22 caliber pistol in his hand like Ernest Hemingway and Clark Gable rolled into one My dad ro

The Shared Transgender(er)

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...I told Uncle Lou I thought it (trans-gendering) looked like a thoughtful way of occupying the world. It was a personal triumph, for some individuals, over the destructive affects of denial. Besides, it hurt no one, and it didn’t destroy property. I alw

Years After

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Years After she can go home.

Red

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Erwin came into the kitchen through the back door and went straight to the sink to clean up. Black mud and dried blood crusted his fingertips and caked the callused whorls of his knuckles.  He used the round of strong-smelling soap he kept for…

Just a Joke

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The pizza was perfect, ingredients genuine, not artificial: crust charred slightly; cheese gooey; sauce steaming, requiring careful eating lest the mouth suffer burns. Such quality was becoming rare around town. The product in Manhattan, by and large,

Wet funeral

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I know now, how she moves without verbs after you crushed her into the river.

The MacGowans Flee West

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Some believe the Scots were encouraged to emigrate, hired guns as it were, to Ireland to civilize that population. If that's the case, we would see it as another evil English trick. In any case, we MacGowans are Scots Irish and Protestant.

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

Death At McDonalds, or How I Learned To Love

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"I sighed heavily. 'Goddamn it...' I spat under my breath. 'Every motherfucking time..."

Variation on a Variation of a Mode

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Borges must be so proud somewhere

The Clock Man's Trouble

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A lowing cow cracked open the darkened room like the yawn of a gravid alien.

Ingrid Bergman Answers the Call

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Out the window is an empty birdbath, dry flaky concrete ring, no birds.

PLAYGROUND

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Marie shrugs. “Maybe she’s just late. Come on, let's wait by the jungle gym.” She runs over and starts climbing. The jungle gym is closest to the path that goes into the woods and down into the canyon. She has to get him into the woods somehow.

Mama's Boys

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A pale face was illuminated by the street light. A voice rasped, “Charlie?” “Do I know you?” “It's Bill.” The side of his little brother's thin face

Amiaivel

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Once upon a time a queen was blessed with twin sons, which she named Nosch and Amiaivel.

20 Things I Learned about Norman Rockwell from "American Mirror, The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell"

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His middle name was Perceval. He judged the first Miss America contest in 1922. He saw himself primarily as a storyteller in the Dickensian mode.He claimed to be an illustrator rather than an artist. He disliked driving but loved to walk, and preferred…

Those (Beckoning) Lights

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The understanding we made was neatly wrapped up in its own blue tissue cocoon like a neatly rolled joint and dumped unceremoniously into the forgotten past like a plate of leftover digitized lies. The lid was slammed shut. Time passes too tightly. And you …

Suzanne

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And I watched, from her warm bed, the curtains dancing in the window

Welcome to the Occupation

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You just watch, the schoolteachers’ll be next and then you’ll see shit go down. Imagine what happens when a fifth-grader sees his teacher getting frog-marched through a crowd on YouTube.

Chairs and Mirrors

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There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.

Wings

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The trouble began in October, when Ava, an embittered receptionist who worked at a small museum housed in a five-story Westside brownstone, discovered that the floors were littered with enormous grey feathers

Woman

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When you move to the music of a woman

Cast Off Thy Suffering

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Somewhere along tomorrow, I will forget I have the right to do this.

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.4

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Azure walked through the fog as though she were walking to class. Her hands swayed through the mist and felt the thickness of the cloud through her fingers

The Dead in Paris, Complete

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Did we get Jihadi John?/ And the highway to Mosul?// What’s the score?

Tomorrows Never Written and Subsequent Unrehearsed Memory

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For some, a vertical pattern will evoke prison bars, for others, product bar codes.

A Woman Who Watches

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She was a beautiful woman. I don't argue with that. I welcome it.

John Lennon Slept Here (Or Was It Ringo?)

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Why is the ghost of John Lennon haunting a house in rural Oregon?