Most recent stories

Black Ribbon

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The highway stretches out in front of me, a black ribbon winding into the future; a collapsing probability of possibility connecting me with the past and through it to the future.

Statue Of An Armless Woman

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It feels like I'm almost in love with the statue of an armless woman. So white, so much whiter than white, so white it makes you believe you're blind, makes you feel like gnawing the rind off a blood red orangeIn the town square near the fountain …

They're cutting the catalpa tree (Catalpa speciosa) in Essen, Germany

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They cut the tall specious tree storms snapped the night in two or three. At times they pause most piously to count each ring of truth, drive nails into the stiff cathartic spine, divine if this unseasoned cigar topiary agrees with its own everlasting te

I Knew Her

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We met in the theater.

Istanbul

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They are plastering on lipstick in pay-to-enter toilets around the corner from the mosques, where old men sit on back streets selling toilet seats, spices by the shovel, flashlights, and Audrey Hepburn t-shirts

Rediscovered

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Remain in repose, a little longer.

Staying With Mattie

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I invited Henry to go out with me and Marge, suggesting he ask Ellen who he dated a while back and who still asked about him, but Henry shook his head “no” and said “out things” were just too boring at our ages — and besides, since his…

Vegas Elvis

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I followed the curve of the etched Koi, its filigree scales arcing across a taut midriff toward the indent of her pierced navel, where a collection of water lilies drifted on the surface of her skin.

Welcome To Bedpan Alley! Honest Names For Nursing Homes

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A senior living facility called “Symphony Square ” recently opened up in my neighborhood. It doesn't have a symphony. Nor is it square. So what's with the name? I'm guessing that a consultant was paid big bucks to come up with that enticing moniker.…

In Tongues

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Even as I moveTowards some form of true reprieve I can't make head nor tail of you Except when you speak in tongues In the dark progressive hills In the fields that freedom chills In the house Democracy built You will find a hint of guilt …

1888: Mrs. Sherwood

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Margaret will take her seven away from his raging Irish hammers slurry Saturday night honks smashing red eyes. They'll board a secret train countryside bound where they sing the songs of her own dead Mam who lived poor in the world but…

All the Broken People

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We all// fall short and fail.

Nearly Lost

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My body feels chilly but it's not from the outside temps. It seems to me it's the opposite of a fever.

Clean Out Your Desk, Naps. You're Being Replaced.

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Sunday mornings my mother got up early—and dragged me kicking and screaming out of bed and into my nicest jeans and sweater. I have still never thanked her. (I’m borrowing, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less true.)

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 24

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When Frank entered Michiko’s apartment, Michiko was not there.

Frozen Bird Pie

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I like how you completely disappeared inside a undetermined and yet planned point of pretty view, like a rabbit with a chained pocket watch, like a stunned, frozen bird with a still burning bullet in its tinyfeathered brain. You could say that one…

Doctor

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I asked her how she came to be at our little party. We all knew she was an intern. What would she want with the likes of us, the orderlies and techs and strays? She just held up Ed's flyer and said, "Why not?" But she didn't look happy. We fired up and someone said, "Let's…

Serve & Protect

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If she was still breathing, Tom promised himself he would let her live, but right then his shoulder ached and his right hand was throbbing.

Buck Moy

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Then he told us tales of skulls and planks, galleons and parrots, silver and gold on crystal Jamaican seas under deep ruby skies.

Poem about my Penis

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I feel like writing a poem about my penis, my penis is not me although I am my penis. Sometimes dry as ginger ale. Sometimes dripping like a tap when a little plumbing is required and it is Sunday, the plumber's day off. I feel like writing a poem about my…

Aubade Faucet

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I. he leans his messy head against the walland contemplates his wild mistakeshe discovers a nest of red spidersoutside his rotting basement doorhe watches television in his socksand…

Make Out Party

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He begins talking about string theory. He reels me back in, from the dinosaurs to the infinite, human evolution and alternate dimensions, until it makes so little sense that everything makes sense.

Widow Walk

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She heads toward the end of the island and doesn't look back.

The Algorithm That Got Away: The Q&A

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He is unmediated by any computer or person. He went rogue in 2016. He has been in your Facebook feed, your Netflix recommendations, your Spotify playlists, your Google ads, and your YouTube pre-roll. But what is next for him? Lets find out.

Modest Proposal

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It could be fun,/ with the guns, explosives, Molotov/ Cocktails and all,

Forevergrad

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The man was sitting at his makeshift kitchen table. He was forty-five years old. He wore his mortarboard with tassel whenever he left his home. Once inside either a reputable establishment or one generally considered less so, he was sure to take off his m

Prometheus

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Allow me one moment of stasis from pain, If I must really become that one, Who brought by giant hand man's gain, And suffered through theft of the sun. No dagger pricks the injured side, Or vulture picks the source of bile: Still must wan hordes…

I-35W

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my world cracked

Things an Old Person Would Say

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Obituaries aren’t as much fun as they used to be.

Prologue (excerpt from a novel)

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The clip-clopping of footsteps now echoes from the opposite end of the alleyway, and as you turn to face the figure who appears behind you, the figure wearing a fierce Noh-drama mask, you determine that this time you will enlist its aid in decoding this r