Most read stories

Lucky Strike

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I like the smoke going in but I like it even more when it's coming out

Invite to a Death

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I'm the joker of the pack in our office, although I think a lot of my humour is too subtle for my colleagues

Like An Endless Rain

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Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.

Fragile Things

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She asks me what she should do, and I say I don't know because I'm no good at handling fragile things. She says, let's talk about you. I say I can't - phone signal, you know. She calls me anyway, twice, then leaves a message saying that she just wanted to

The First poem.

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Then you stopped abrupt.

The Pixie

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On the bank of the stream, we take off our clothes and dash into the water.

Miguel's Fence

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Miguel's mom told everyone if you pressed your ear against the knot, Jesus would tell you special secrets.

The Front Window at Starbucks, NYC

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His eyes drift over the body of every woman who enters Starbucks, even though he’s old enough to be their father or grandfather, still his eyes are aware of every shape passing by, refusing to let go, and die. Maybe they’re speaking Polish or

Dreams-in-progress

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A team of reggae journalists played and an unknown man came after work for me in a kilt.

Cure

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It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.

My First Post-9/11 Dream: In Which I Discover Life After Death

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January 3rd EST/January 2nd PST 2002 It's 1:45 am or 10:45 pm depending on your philosophy about changing your watch when you fly. My plane is scheduled to land in San Francisco soon, but I'm completely disoriented because I've just had my first post-9/11 dream. …

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…

A Woman Who Watches

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

Destroy the Evidence

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The oven door topples off of its hinges as she kicks and climbs out. She growls and quickly slaps out her still smoldering sweater shoulder. Taking a kitchen chair by the back, she swings it over her head and shatters the window. The chair breaks into splinters as she…

WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKER

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WITH A BOW TO DOROTHY PARKERWhen his fingers sped along the keys, I'd need to sit. I'd such weak knees. I thought him charming, tall, and able, then he overturned the table. Chili, crackers, cheddar cheese crashed on me-he'd been displeased. I…

patti, did art get us?

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often as i lie awake i wonder are you awake too?/ we never had any children, he said ruefully/ that summer i cried so much that robert called me soakie/ robert, dying: creating silence

Five Bucks.

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“For Chrissake! Just get me one of fucking Tony's half-assed, made in China bullshit, getaway cars. My plate is hot!” I had never hated cars so much before. Not so much the cars, but the sound the cheap ones made when they drove past my house. The…

At This Particular Moment

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in time there is nothing more important for meto write than this line. It isn't defined in the way you'd like perhaps, but it doesn't matter because it will be true, and you will be true, and I will be the message you get. Some signal has…

Hail Mary Pass

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so for penance, the priest gave me the full twelve Stations of the Cross

Just Another Hero

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Alma Tucker settled into middle age with the comfort that escapes most women. Her festival queen days gone. Along with her wispy waist and cherry blond hair, replaced by broader curves and graying tresses. She was content with the way age had changed her

Day's Heat and Mistaken Winters

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Elizabeth stood outside my door one afternoon. I greeted her from across the studio, put on some water to boil and walked to the door. I took her hand, held it to my cheek, and led her to my dining room table.

Suppose, I ask my friend

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nothing has ever happened in this or that or any other or maybe too damn many parallel universes. . . .

Ten Tequila Shots

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After sprouting boobs and a vagina before her sixteenth birthday, a girl watches her divorced father fall from parental grace by drinking ten tequila shots and baring it all for the neighbors to see on his birthday.

Europe, 1960

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The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Obituary

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Patrick Savage, who has died aged 29, was a poker player fast on his way to becoming a cult figure in the music scene.

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

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Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.

Holding Hands in Public

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Take my hand. Take my hand and we will sail through the atmosphere leaving trails of rainbow speckled life written in musical notes behind us. We can go anywhere you want, whenever you wish. The moon in 1974. I hear the earth looks gorgeous during the seventies.…

Eggman

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The last one I tipped over the edge was just like all the others: fragile, pale, humming to himself as he sat on the ledge overlooking the gardens.

Freeway Deaths Attributed to Talk Radio

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"I was just coming home from work listening to Consumer Dave," said Murrietta resident Mick Baylor, through his attorney, "when my eyelids started getting droopy. And he was just talking about how Circuit City was going out of business and I was. . .well,

There's No Crying in Poetry

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There’s / no crying in poetry!” says Coach / Bukowski