Recommended stories

Take Back the Night

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A woman who is, say, a culinary arts champion or an heiress devoted to literature such as Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman) or Peggy Guggenheim might be able to turn me on, turn me out, turn me around.

Fractional

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Fine gradations of the fractional/ fissure the eggshell whole we crave

Mostly I Want to be Walking

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by myself next to just one wide-eyed moment of wild blued out ocean. You know the one I mean. I don't want to have to speak to you, or even- alone- to myself. I'd like to be left inside the poem it makes me feel without having to get up and pee every…

The Best Interest of the Child

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He was here and then he was gone. He wasn't at my ex-wife's house either. On Tuesday we were at the circus and that's the last I saw him. I jumped into my '68 Beetle, one step above a clown car, and I stopped by The Big Top. The carnies were there, smoking cigarettes and…

The Noise

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I'm hearing a noise. I can't see it. It's hiding and seems to be coming from the other side of the creek. With boots on I slowly wade across. The water makes its light lapping sounds. Reaching the bank, I search for the noise. It must have a face, suntanned and warm, that I…

empty

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feeling empty as the bottom of a bottle dry as a bone in death valley alone

Novemberku

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Dark day.

After the Storm

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I watch from the cabin window the death of the sun, hear the howl of the new-born storm.

Working at a Truck Stop Outside Charlotte

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My name's Barbara and don't call me Barbie if you want to be my friend.

Love in the Time of Ebola

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Me: In my orange hazmat, the one that makes my eyes look intensely blue.Him: His flexi-human-hamster ball. Fun, but a bit informal for a first date, I think.We're outside because doorways are not easy for him. After some impromptu rounds of bumper balls on the square, he…

The Last Quiet Morning

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Things don’t happen here, life is so boring in this little Irish town.

Now or Never

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One by one our friends are kicking the bucket. Let's get together. It's now or never, we figure.

This Is

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Have you ever spent twilight in a old pasture?

Catherine

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Love free of independence is a savage, hungry beast Phantoms grasping, sweating, gasping 'till her mind could not be freed

Outside Starbuck’s on the Way to Work

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I always step around his mess...

Stones

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At the graveyard, the leaves had been raked into loose array....

Purple IV

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Purple not rain! I guess Prince left. It is said that Prince owned the aquifer under Jordan, Minnesota, and that he sold it but to whom? And moved to Canada—

The small hills of my cousin

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You know, my mother was afraid that I can no longer resist. She was absolutely right: My four sisters have all passed away before the summer shows its fruit. It was hard "said my mother”, not to see my flowers bloom. I, the calf of my mother,I came…

Your party invitation just arrived (guest poem by Carolyn Martin)

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"I’d rather move a word around a page than raise a glass or pass a plate or work a room immune to poetry."

Interstellar Solace

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he considers the swirl of galaxies/ with their black hole hearts,

Yellow Pages

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Yellow Pages season is on us now, and Jimmy's drivin' a contract route. He'll head out to the San Joaquin where they print, and load ‘em in the back of his Tundra with the high side walls until the whole damned rig sags low,

The City of Lights

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Paris is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Check Engine

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“How’s the Pinto running?” Sean says. It’s been awhile. Maybe Darcy won’t remember him.

Malaise

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Endurance wears the soul thin.// The hour to succumb ticks ever closer.

Within You and Without You

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The cloudless sky/ amplifies the incompletion,/ clarifies the imperfections/ of the night’s normalcy-

Things I Learned But No Longer Believe

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Shakespeare had red hair / Van Gogh never painted a nude

Shameful Maneuvers

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Most of the boys I pretended to marry thought my classroom seductions were funny, but there is a chance that one of the boys turned violent against me.

A Release of Sorts

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For the new year, I´ve given up palm oil. Made shopping a whole lot harder. Damn orangutans tugging at my conscience.

Missing Letter

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It's so far to get to where we aren't inthe way of someone's destructive progress.I'm only walking in my own gardensnow, but the big blue house is like an emptiedout envelope. I guess that makes this themissing letter. I don't know your heart's newaddress, but I once…

Dark Heart

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When we take Vengeance,/ shave and shower him,/ deodorize and scent him,/ clothe him in a starched shirt