Most recent stories

Oatmeal

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She found herself suddenly awake at five. She laid there in their bed while downstairs the coffee maker waited for her to press its button so it might gurgle and hiss, filling the pot with wakefulness. The dishwasher waited too, waited for her to throw its latch…

The Humanists

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“She’s very sick. She’s dying,” and he smoothed my hair along my neck. “It’s leukemia. A very rare type,” his hand reached my shoulder and stopped there. “She only has a few months.”

The Real Story Behind The Lipstick On Obama's Shirt

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The lipstick on your collar walked up the steps and through the front door, without a key. Her smile was hypnotically red and bountiful. The guards standing around didn't dare frisk her for weapons, her lips were weapon enough.

for one dedicated to artemis

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artemis is but a mincing fawn:/ no sacred bitches need i in my ranks,/ nor hunting dogs to tear a man apart/ when i have teeth enough to bruise fine flanks.

Wednesday

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“Goodnight,” he said before leaving the room and shutting his bedroom door behind him. She stood in the kitchen alone now, a shot of vodka poured into a shot glass, and a bottle of coke ready to swig afterwards. This didn't make her an alcoholic…

Extinctions

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Dinosaurs, a little boy, a hapless mother and mortality.

Writing prompts

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Tongs, uvulas, money. Love. But really, silence.

I spend my free time writing epitaphs

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I invented a game called Church & State

Elegy For the Old Republic

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You call the shit in this paper news? ‘Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform, The Truth About Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter.' Seriously? Enough about Elvis already.

Elise Imagines Herself Behind Flowers: 1938

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In your mouth is the attic studio Where your father’s brushes lie wet with water

Unintentional Hermits- Double Exposure

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The mother continued to stand, marooned in her isolation and Isis' hostility in between table and bed and under the overhead which cast a blue tinge, she held the newspaper- The Daily Mail- which embarrassed Isis- aloft and at an angle, one leg position

A Place in the Sun

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What grabbed the mind when you heard about it was the way he did it.

Plastic Jesus in an Upright Tub

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Me and Dale chuck rocks at it.

Grace

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The instant you remember gratitude with enough focus to spring free its power...

Beach Bird Bliss

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This day, oh, this day… shoved joy and gratitude in my face, then tossed in beauty and just a touch of grace. A Piping Plover set my sorrows by the side, nabbing morsels when it could, then racing from the tide. Junior Eagle perched…

Big Money in Poetry!

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Perhaps you have heard the rumors of big money in poetry Maybe that’s why everybody is writing it these days Even Emily Dickinson must have heard these rumors Myself, I suspected as much 50 years ago And started early to accumulate my hoard of poe

The Telephone

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Stop talking the phone is asleep. / It is a resting wounded animal. / It is old and made of machines.

Intentions

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As Susan drove the last stretch home, she couldn't help but press the accelerator a bit deeper than usual. Her car zipped passed the neighborhood houses, which were of mostly brick construction, with two car garages and freshly mulched islands of spring flowers.…

Brothers of the Sacred Circle: A Prayer to Ares

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When our body falters, deny us rest. When our minds crack under the strain, forbid us sanity. When we are too tired to fight give us war.

What Einstein didn't say

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First you must accept / the speed of light as constant. / If you can’t do that, stop reading.

Charlatan Art

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I bought some charlatan art / and hung it on the wall

Dear Mei

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I planned and planned. I followed the veterinarians around and I took vials of panda tranquilizers when they were not looking, and it was often that they forgot to look. The earth kept shaking, they were hungry, and many did not know what had become of th

The Longing

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It’s the longing from another life inside that pulls me along by the fine hairs below my navel, exposed at the midriff, and by the short fine hair at my neck, also the dense bunch between my legs, as you might imagine. And it’s the longing of the love I

Roy and Ray

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Roy Carver owned a big tire retreading outfit over on the Mississippi.

Better Boys, Early Girls

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... tomatoes swelling and turning pink...

What Happens In A Bed

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Eight days before her 50th birthday they were married in their soft new pajamas, holding hands on his bed in the hospital. The pastor and witnesses wore protective hospital gowns and gloves; the patient was in isolation once again. A special dispensation from the head…

Stroke

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She doesn't regret that they hadn't spoken. What did they have to say to each other, anyway?

No. Please, No . . .

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["LIKE SAND THROUGH THE HOURGLASS ... SO ... ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES!"]

Proprietary

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One by one the hundred matte black drones hummed awake. The buzz was loud on the tiny airfield but died out soon among the waving amber heads of Kansas wheat that surrounded the unsigned base.

A Haiku In Spirit But Not In Form On the Fine Art of Sumo

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Two titans move opposite one another