Most recent stories

1. The Knife (or, Ignorance is Bliss)

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He showed me the knife, said it was his best friend. This knife is older than you, he said. Here, run your finger along its blade. Like this. He showed me how to do it.

Rocket

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The Chicago to Denver fast train clocked 90 MPH plus, but braked hard on the long curve through town, sparks ringing flanged wheels.

Saturdays with Satan: Desperately Seeking Evil

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“Grow some fucking balls, Satan!”Did I just say that? To the prince of darkness?Yes. Yes, I did. Let me back up.*It was around 10:30 Saturday morning when the phone rang. I recognized the caller id.“Hi, Satan,” I said as I picked it…

Inversions of Pound: Canto I

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these tender girls tears recent / with stained souls, brides of dead, / cadaverous Erebus; unguarded ladder / long the down going…came Anticlea then

Down on the Street

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dirty-pretty

Heads or Tails

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The man next door came over with a pitchfork.

Bad Boys

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I don’t remember much about kindergarten.... The teacher’s name was Mrs. Halverson. She was nice.

The Baby Pool

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I want to fly like a snail. Yes, snails fly in their minds, so does the brain of the ocean. Does a man want to drown in the ersatz of desire? You must understand me. You and I swam together. They call it escape velocity.

Brown Plastic Bag.

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[ADVERTISEMENT: If you look for it, Google search, for 'html special characters,' the UT Austin page will come up, and you can just Cut & Paste 'em. Fuck the code!]

George Burnett's Secret

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He roared back at her, shaking his empty gun in his right hand, waving his left hand in the air. “I am George Burnett, esquire, late of Balliol College, Oxford! I am a hunter, a killer of pigs! I do not fear you, bear; take the pig and be content!”

A Manual for Readers

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The story will starve. It will crawl up your throat to get the cracker.

Blood By Pines

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But all that they found at the top was bloody red spatters on pure white snowflakes. And beyond that footprints that got smaller and smaller until they disappeared completely into the spicy green pines.

Pick Me

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Strike me down hard, bolt of pure blue, laser focus square, blast of hydrogen nuclear, knock me on the keister, blind me down, oh Lordy Lord Lord.

Being Old is No Place for Sissies

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My natural blonde hair is no longer sultry. Instead of a Dietrich look, I now assume a dead on impression of Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" some mornings.

#53 Cut Up

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I loved her when she first came calling in the sodden dawn of spring. She was a strange and dangerous flower. Together we drank up all the money. The days staggered away like drunks lurching down a flophouse hall.

Calypso

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For here in the vortex are no other laws, Than separate towards you I and skirting stone- To wards where wavelets purr against their pause A moment more, to yawn to omicron… Inside the seashell orchard's whirl-quick floor- Come all at once to me or…

Happy National Hairball Awareness Day

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Something’s not right. Okie, the elder cat, seems–distrait. Taciturn. Phlegmatic. And those are just leftover vocab words from my son’s senior English class.

I Want You

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to have something, but I don't think you need anything from me. There are poems that belong in your hair and no one else's. They should be like stars that only appear every one thousand years or so, then can only be seen when you are…

Lessons in Insomnia

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It’ll all make sense when you're sitting on an éclair chaise longue by the morning pool of coffee.

500 Words or Less

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A brief commentary on the uselessness of endings.

The balloon of you

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and the mass exceeds the buoyancy/ and gravity pulls you back,

The 27 Club

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Jimi, Jim, and Janis Kurt and Amy too They died and gone to heaven And fit inside a shoe Room 114’s where they lie Their eyes wide open

Bar at East Capitol Road

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My friend, drunk, spoke to me / outside a bar where we hung out; / and his eyes were red from tiredness,

Strained

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She wonders if he will do the dishes. He said that he would, but that doesn’t mean anything. He said he would do them last week, said he would save money, said he would come home last night. He didn’t do any of those things, either.

ATYPICAL TWITTER PSYCHOSIS

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nine seven thousand debut novel words i love you thx for reading by #aksania #xenogrette #MINE #novella #birdking #pixies #ASPARAGUS #SPACETRASHVIOLET #SEX #DOROTHYNOTROBOT

Easter

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Marge didn't eat lamb or pork.

Sorrows Know How to Swim

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That night he dreamed about a duel with toothbrushes....

Oh, Little Bird, You Send Me

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Who are all these rough looking people, hanging over me, itching me with their shaggy grapevines for arms? Like twisting, dangling down painted cloth Gargoyles on a quickly coming apart dried up rope? It's always been the same old perch to view from. You wanted to know…

Mall Flower

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I’ve blown out my shag haircut and it’s big. BIG-big.

Ripening

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My face turns to promise more, but my insides are browning.