Most recent stories

A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING

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My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.

Salt

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I imagined the crystals in my mouth. Salt flowers blooming on my tongue.

Haiku for National Poetry Day 2012

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Late morning sun,Windows are all open:Autumn's last warm day?

Where We Come From

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Where We Come From (ver. 2.0) (Leadwood, Missouri pop. 1,200) I Matt lit a joint here driving beneath the arms of dying trees The moon shone through in jigsaw puzzles that we could never quite figure out Gravel crackled like leaves in fire …

Tweeting "War and Peace" by Bobbie Ann Mason and Meg Pokrass

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by Bobbie Ann Mason and Meg Pokrass at The Nervous Breakdown website: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/mpokrass/2012/10/tweeting-war-and-peace-with-bobbie-ann-mason/

The Latest Rock Groups

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Luke Warm and the Sole Contenders. Door Odor Ant. Release My Pajamas! Behemoth Pterodactyls. Dragon Wagons. Mucked Up. The Gosspinator. Italian Film Director. Summer Dress. Unsolicited Advice. Golden Calf. The Gum-Chewin Gurus.…

Dead Bird Uncovered by Spring

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Left by a melting snowbank: Cup lids, pine needles, a cairn of dog shit, And the grey soggy shape Of an eyeless winter bird. His breast is an old accordion Gone to rot in an old…

Mariposa

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My father pressed on,/ deliberate and calm,/ waiting for the ambulance

Meet Robert Grady

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Robert had chopped his hair and grown a soul patch since I'd last seen him. He was tanned, the hair on the top of his head was spiked, and some gray specks were creeping in on the hair on the side of his head. Had…

Getting There

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The monarchs that migrate to Mexico and California in the autumn every year live for only a month.

Feast of Sacrifice

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I'd have gone even if I got F's for the entire two weeks. The homeless would have homes, the sick, medicine; the hungry would eat. They could not wait for the generosity of Kurban Bayramı. Now was the hour of relief. The children's eyes. Lambs whose bl

Beowulf in Hell (in Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse)

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They strung him up,…

Strut

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The devil ran in my blood.Scars chase each other on my skin.One year old, I fell down the stairs in my walker.Five years old, I fell out of a tree while convincing my older sister to climbthe outlawed tree.At six I rode my bike down the biggest hill in the…

Determination without Negation: A Love Story

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In dreams begin responsibilities--Yeats I'm writing this story to tell you about a mistake, despite the fact that you might find it boring or might consider my writing style onerous or overeager. I begin with…

How Would Jesus Drive?

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Contemporary persecution of Christians takes on milder forms of torture like having to explain away something Pat Robertson said, or constantly having to hear about Fred Phelps picketing funerals because he happens to hate homosexuals.

Posted for Non-Payment of Dues

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The little notice talked its trash, a J’accuse! “Posted: For Non-Payment of Dues.”

In This, Our Life

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Her captors allowed her the use of the toes of one foot. It was hard to pretend she was numb—as if playing an artic game indoors. With the ball of her foot, she primed the canvas. Her big toe acted as a fan brush, the rest were sable, flat, or pointy. She told…

Must've Done Something, Right?

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I hope you’re happy, she said. Fucker!

Beowulf in Hell

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They strung him up, stowed on the balcony, and beat him with sticks, and beat him with rocks, and bent his muscles, …

Falling Off The Roof

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"As the thing lurches upright, I can see now that it is an old woman with snake eyes… a dead old woman with snake eyes and peeling flesh. She is putrid and maggoty. She is coming right at us. She is my mother."

The Morning

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loudly mimics

Rain Turtle

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The first thing Vera did after her dismissal from the mortuary was buy a pack of cigarettes.

A Poem for Chris Toll

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we all die from the bottom up

Confrontation on the field of play

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The boy wasn’t raised this way.

Of Alleys & Ivory

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“You think it’s a self-castrating suicide note or a self-righteous freedom speech?” “Probably just the ramblings of a madman, pissed he lost a company baseball game.” “Fuckin-A, Pete! Double-murder suicide for a baseball game? Ain’t nobody that craz

Before California Fell into the Sea

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The trail wound through oak trees and climbed up a hill. The sun was high and hot whenever we came out from the cover of the trees. We stopped under a tree. “OK old man,” Leda said. She came to me and kissed me. Then she was unbuttoning my pants and kne

Independent Assiduity, part one

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This is me pitching a recently completed screenplay to a film producer at lunch the other day:

Nepenthe

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Alas, the wind, the rain/ and plate tectonics take temples,/ fire and sediment papyrus and clay,

A Sight Worth Keeping in View

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. . . I wanted to put Tiffany out of her misery and mine and shove her in front of the next large vehicle hurtling down the drive-through lane . . . .

They Take Those Most Willing to Endure, Write Them Off the Map, and Leave You to 'Resign' Yourself to What's Left

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[DO NOT READ BETWEEN THIS LINE ... CITIZEN!]