Most recent stories

Thank ya, Jesus

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We were always thrilled that the moon worked the night shift. In high school, often bored with the two drive-in movies, we'd sometimes go to tent revivals on our dates and get healed or get saved depending upon what that “tent-housed”…

Point of Grace

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Say the world is a smudged charcoal drawing. Slit from its frame, smuggled out of the Vatican. Don't say it couldn't happen. Who would know.

Luminous Nights, 6

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We had to walk up to the fourth floor, and on those steamy hot Chicago summer nights in August, sometimes I would strip off my top before we even got in the door. I lived with my Siamese cat, whose name was Caesar.

A Story About You

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“I wrote a story about you today.”

Ripping Good Poetry Lures Boys Who Curse With Verse

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Pringy practices an aesthetic variant of the “muscular Christianity” that is a tradition at Groton; a program of Sunday poetry classes for boys who violate the school’s ban on swearing.

Context and Confessional Poetry

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I like babies and little kids, more than some people but goddamn, children's laughter out of nowhere (in the night, when you're not expecting it) is creepy. I don't like slugs smeared like nightmare goo on my summer-bare feet, I could do without them in …

The Bicycle Mechanic

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The hour reflected those pleasant moments when evening hunger can be satiated by anticipation alone, before the pangs become demanding.

Don't You Think

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a war forever seems so sadly stupid, pretty petty on our perky part in the ongoing play, a terrible loosed thing to have to always keep holding up our hostage hands to-- at least when being compared to…

The Mouth Is A Swell Place To Invent Things

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Yesterday I saw Marco Polo getting a tattoo on East Olive. He was practicing Mandarin Chinese with the tattoo artist who was also Chinese. He got a yin yang symbol on his bicep. He looked to the east and saw the hills lift themselves into sky. He grimaced

Alice

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Alice writes three different versions of the letter. The last one is the most tempered, the most like her, but still it is such an unlike-her thing to do. The couple who lives above her has been disrupting her sleep nearly every night for the past three weeks. The woman's…

I Wish

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I wish I had money I would give it all to you I would give you more than I could imagine I would pull the fetus out of your heart Between my two fingers And glue us together I would glue our faces together too After putting in all my

Masquerade

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. . . music and dance, theatrical performance of tragedies and comedies . . . a primeval orientation, celebrating the cultivation of herbs and vines . . . ritualistic use of intoxicants, to remove inhibitions, to liberate participants . . .

Minus Mammalian Skin

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It's soundless, but they're saying please, don't let it hurt, don't let us be consumed by the air, don't let it be madness. My muscles tense in bare rhythm.

A Not-For-Kids Dream That All Boys Have

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The room turns red and I start screaming and ejaculating. The whole class is watching as Mr.Smith slams down my copy of the test with his right hand and swiftly tears off my penis with his left.

Luminous Nights, 5

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It turned out that my brother's newly acquired building in downtown Pasadena, was what developers called a "see-through" building. That meant you could look from one side of the building all the way through to the other side, without obstruction. In oth

Rain Dance

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You were gone, long gone, and I could no longer smell your scent as I walked through the empty house. I couldn't bring myself to unpack the boxes, and they lurked like a forest of overgrown drab Legos.

Wherein the Air

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He inhaled the spears of aroma...

Agrarian Joys of Ornamental Lawns

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The leaves/ that clung through February/ fall, dung brown,

Eyes Off the Road

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One by one I lost my desires.

Seamus Has the Palsy Now

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Seamus’ hands are shaking now that once were still as stalking cats.

Woman Things

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...when the doctor scrapes the baby out, he cuts out all the things that make babies, too...

Save the Spinning World

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or do we tickle each other's private stocks of fancy instead? I know which one I would choose, but so do you, and that's how the question's always changing places with the wrongheaded answer's velcro-lined vest, bullet to blasting…

No More Dogs

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Highway 45N cost me four dogs when I was growing up. Actually, having our backyard abut the highway was the real problem. It got to be where I was afraid to get too attached. We lost Nicky,…

.38 In the Glove Compartment

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I accidentally opened the glove compartment and stumbled upon his snub-nose .38 caliber. He saw me looking at it and smirked. “Protection,” he said, picking his teeth with a wooden toothpick after lunch. “In my line of business, you hafta have it.” “Wh

HOMESTEADING

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She had loved sleeping in Todd’s arms at night, hearing the soft tinkle of crystal above her when cool drafts moved through the house, his hand wandering over the swell of her belly.

Jury Duty in the West

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My wife says you can tell the crooks from the cops from the cowboys at the taco truck across the street.

Consider The Son

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Don’t forget, I’ve watched the evil you’ve done to the lawn for years, not to mention the chaos you’ve made of the woodshed. Don’t you remember me showing you how to properly stack the wood?

The After-Sex Song

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After sex he would get on his old refurbished upright piano and always play that same song. We came to know it as the After-Sex Song. It was really quite lovely, and touching. I think it made us all feel better around that building. Yeah, I remember t

Flight

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They’re friends, him and Sissy and Raul, you know, and live upstairs from Asa and he went up there. He kept texting me saying, B here all night, follow u 2 airport. Yelled down through the floor. Real crazy shit.

Tell Me What Happened

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The empty faces in the crowd all mumbled...