Most recent stories

philanthropy from a cardboard box + a detour to Han-shan

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philanthropy corrugated with a smirk / printed aside every cardboard box and room / every cardboard house with every cardboard door.

Goodnight, Travel Well

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An excerpt.

Animal Crush

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two pairs of arms and legs

The Little Things (three versions)

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It's the little things that trip us up: a small hole in a level field, an innocuous root in a well-trod path, a disinclined sidewalk...

Lost Splendors

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“I have a theory,” she said on their first date, which was at an Indian restaurant where the music was a lovely singsong but the chef seemed enraged as he clapped a ball of dough between his hands, then threw it into the flames. And her date, whom she…

Urgencies

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...it was moving toward me from an oblique angle somewhere behind, steadily, relentlessly.

What is Retirement?

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But what “is” retirement? All of the previous sections in a life are full of detailed descriptions. But “retirement” is somehow left rather vague. One would think that retirement would be the long-awaited GOAL of life. But instead we are left with the

The Day I Got Fired From My Foundation Job

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But of course, I didn’t get the grant, so my day job in communications at Katzenfeld continued. It was the first job I got out of college. I had been there for over a year and my salary was less than my rent and student loans combined, so I had to keep my

The Ghost

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I stroll out to the front lawn, and find myself against the sea of grass, painted daubs within the frame of a distilled rock. My ears attuned to the starlets warbling on the twisted branches of the lone tree, flock of wings that find subtlety and shine in the rapture…

Interruption

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As soon as he neared his neighborhood newsstand, handed over the exact change and had The New York Times in his hand, Irving switched from feeling he had no choices, to feeling he had a future.

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas

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In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

Puppet X, 1

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I know you, ladies and gentlemen We see the near future through you Your factual face as you sit indoors Youthless In your ordinary chair "Mice run through their vision Mice run through

The Planet Will Erase Us

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We control/ nothing.

Waves of Memory

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"Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. It doesn’t mean anyone is to blame - It just is."

East

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We went east. It wasn't all that easy, but easier than staying where we were, unable to freely move or give birth to anything brand new. We went east insearch of the mysterious faraway beginnings of a mythical wild west. We went east becauseit…

My First Love Messages Me On Facebook

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He tells me that he thinks he reached out as he needed healing and I wonder if I should diagnose him on the spot, explain what years of therapy taught me about him. I don't. Instead I compliment a photograph of the pot plants he grows, organic,

Edward Ogle the Tenth

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shitting out the Mona Lisa.

Tendrils

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you stand ashore

Executing the Trade

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Prospero's in his cell and I'm in mine. He drowns his books, I'm drowning in mine. He exercises his power–I'm powerless to exercise.

In the Woods

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...come come come come...

A Writer Abroad

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Here’s an obvious fact: I live in Germany, but don’t speak much German. Okay, I speak very little German. Truth be told, hardly any.

Guns in the House

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Jack would have felt betrayed, and my parents alarmed, had they ever suspected me of playing with Jack's guns, but I found the temptation overwhelming.

'MY DICK IS SO HARD FOR JESUS!' by Christofascist Jones

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"Now, I'm not no Holocaust Denier . . . I just think it was a little bump in the road! Like Reagan said about Watergate . . . 'Mistakes were made,' and all. Well, shoot . . .…

Stuff

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Art books, paintings, antique chairs, marble tables, full length gold gilded mirrors, oriental rugs, tapestries, a Louis XVI painted French armoire, a wrought iron Deco coffee table, flat ware, silver flasks, mantel lamps, iron gates, a silk settee, theat

Supermarket Blues

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Man on aisle nine looking for the answer to cancer Will the partially clothed couple on aisle four please put the rest of their clothing back on If you are finished doing whatever it was you were doing? Man on aisle five trying to imagine Whil

O'Arlo's Journal: About Myself

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Every morning if I don't have to go potty....

Three in a Major Key

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One can watch the grass green/ in response. One can watch the world green/ in response.

On Advertising

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As you can see, egotism forms at a young age for people who end up in this industry.

Starry Night

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I invited Van Gogh over for some drinks and a chat. I'm talking about Vincent.

The Body in the Other Room

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I couldn’t parse the grammar of her body nor decode the secret softness of her neck.