Most recent stories

In black velvet

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I can't show you the territory- not quite yet, not how I see it. But I do have a map, a glorious and vain construction. It gives you a glimpse, a sight. I wish you could see it all.

The Diet of Worms

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He had stared at the back of his neck for so long that images of his nape flashed into view randomly throughout the day like interfering signals from a station just out of reach, DESIRE CHANNEL, or something, reminding him of his skewed priorities, his fa

Voyeur

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He and she are fucking while I watch. She's moaning deep desire and he's pounding flesh into flesh. I'm fully clothed, eyes attune to their fornication, studying. He comes inside of her; their bodies stiffen and then wriggle against one another. …

Sounding Well

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There is Truth in imperfection,Symmetry in distortion.Like a sounding well,You can determine the depth of me--PlumbTruthfrom myCore.Test your breath against meSay lies all--I will not believe them.Here am I,Proof Against your intransigence.But do not despair:There…

The Penguin Flight

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Even though I made the phone call, it was really Steven who put me on that plane. I wanted to fly out at dawn. "Let's wait till after breakfast," he said. "Change to a later flight." By that time everything was sold out except a few seats on Doomed Flight…

Wanderer and The Temple

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the odd stone stands/taller than trees/it protrudes from the young forest/an old mecca but smooth

Turning Thirty

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It was a year of red, white, and blue bell bottoms, chokers, and mini-skirts. It was not a decade of pink stretch pants, pink sweatshirts, and pink snowsuits.

Black Wheat, 4

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They like drugs They are concerned with the self (alone) and they say they are in the world . . . Maybe they don't have this blood that calls out to them or they do not hear it Ride in their convertibles unconcerned Nothing is calle

Jimmy's Glass Eye

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We weren't supposed to talk about Jimmy's glass eye. We just had to watch it stare at us all wonkie, without knowing a thing about it.

Having

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I guess it was, you know, a daze thing: He, lightly drunk, turning red in parts of his head, in his cheeks mostly, and his chest, to which my eyes were drawn because of his v-neck douchebag shirt; and I, sleepy beyond belief, sustained like a zombie only

Existential

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To envy faith, to envy love --// is there a fate more hateful? Choices/ scatter like stars. Too many.

Lola

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I know you through the rich dark brown soilcrumbling in my fingers like chocolate cake.I imagine you nurtured bell-shaped papayas,coaxing their smooth, leathery skinfrom green to yellow,while mangoes, the colors of the island sunset,hung with their tantalizing sweet…

The Distance Between You

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It wasn't that I couldn’t imagine it. Rather, I could almost conjure the choreography to mind. One of his hands would graze at the side of my face. One finger would extend and stroke me, from my temples to my chin. He would press my body against something

Head Holding

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"...a head dizzy from my abuse."

Now Go Find Your Water

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http://fictionique.com/?p=15392

The Lonely White Elephant in Rome

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the gambling priest stands in the morning fog/red moon hangs in the sky/the army of seven houses marches over the hill

The Miracle of My Father's Hat

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During the liberation, a Jew in the Russian army, asked him who had been the cruelest. My father gave them the name of the farmer who had murdered his father, and was later told the farmer's son was sent to the front and killed.

Black Wheat, 3

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(it) looks out at the world from behind a film (it) does not participate (it) is slow to love . . . There is the image And they say they are in the world . . . Blood does not shake their hearts They lie and take your s

Literally Choose Your Own Adventure

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You enter the lobby of the office building tentatively at first - you're a little nervous about this interview, after all - but you recall how spectacular and professional you dressed that morning. Plus you read through the company's LinkedIn profile at least five times…

To Sleep

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The woman wrings her hands again and again, reaching up to place one under her chin, then to her cheek as though there is some pending trepidation no one else can see...

On Desire

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For two days his parents had been fighting, and they would tell him to tell the other one something every morning that was supposed to be some sort of slight at their personal failings, which had been inflamed by their twenty years of marriage.

Illumination,with grace

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Jerry peered out into the dark landscape with no fear left.

So Comes Love

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Her students read their work aloud in class, haltingly, sometimes proudly, and their willingness amazed Miriam. They were immigrants and retirees, carpenters, security guards, Indian nannies, Iranian escapees. She loved their odd word choices, the lack of editorial impulse.…

Not the Prelude in C# Minor?!

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Richard played the piece again, slowly, fingers stretching for the high notes while the left hand kept the bass line moving. Then the theme, both hands hard. The notes on the score blurred, every phrase reminding him of a different melody from a long-forgotten time and…

Reading Without an ISBN

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The goal is to perform along with Jason Lee Norman--who is touring with his book of very short stories called Americas--a selection from my own collection called Country Without a Name. The symmetry excites me.

Similarities

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She was skinny and with breasts like a wound up skein of yarn.

Meticulous

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Have you measured the cups, the conveyors' yield? Do you know the span? I am the LORD your God, she murmured.

Black Wheat, 2

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They are really living (they) say things they don't mean . . . Do not know what they say Take the path without heart, seeing the image . . . The moon rises above them It does not move their blood Nothing calls out to their blo

A Stolen Pipe Goes a Long Way Towards An Empty Pouch of Nothing

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We were always blowing stale enough air into each other's faces from the smallest roundest tables available looking at each other sideways at the same sad time as the puppet show…

The Cat Beneath the Off Ramp

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Like Smart’s cat Jeoffrey, he’s a mixture of gravity and waggery.