Most recent stories

Not Making Heads or Tales

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Something about shadows and last time and driving.

Suspicious Activity

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I go down to pick up R and get a cartridge of black ink for the printer. It's an extremely pleasant summer day — early afternoon — and the air is exemplary: clear and sweet. So far so good. But as soon as I park and go to a nearby cash machine the fun begins.…

The Wave

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Crispcrashingcoldan interlude from youThe pebbles pulled back and forthlike side stepping nailswhite frothan interlude from youThe sun likeA camellia for herCrispColddropsflicking on her face.An interludefrom you.

Sprouts

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I feel more like sprouts than cucumbers. Oh, hey. Icame here to tell you something you already know, butmaybe can't remember. Or maybe it's me who is rememberingsomething I meant to say, but didn't. Oh, hey. There's alfalfa and mung bean. I love those skinny little…

Voices of the Dying

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raging on road and page

Sure Thing

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If you ask me I'm thinking I'm just blowing off some steam, some hot air that doesn't add up to the old cliche of a hill of beans. A hill of fucking beans.

eritis sicut deus

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—but neither Lenin’s serenity nor Voron’s could last for long!

The Perfect Crime

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I had committed the perfect crime, and I had left nothing to chance; my best strategy was chancing nothing. Prudence and planning were my only allies, and these are the best allies of success. Usually.

Walking with the Moon

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I heard a voice. It was calling me as from a far-off cloud. I listened, holding my breath, and heard it again, though fading away, barely audible. If I hadn't known my name I wouldn't have decrypted it. Three hazy syllables clearly detached with a sigh between each of them.…

Stationed

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I

Existential Weather Report

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I had a moment of clear inter-species ideation...

Unconscious Primate Pandemic Panic

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I wrap my left foot

The Sweet Need to Dream

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We all ache for the Purple storm that’s said to Smear its finger in the one True place our soul resides On the road to delicate love Rising in the summer blood And the raw shadows Behind lust make a woman Heave in the Garden While lis

The Merry Go Round

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I felt that love could not be paid for or else could never be paid for enough.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll

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We left an oppressed island so we may die in a free country.And, oh lord, how we died!We died from affixation. We died from AIDS.We died from a heart attack. We died from a brain hemorrhage.We died from Parkinson's.We died from breast cancer.We died by suicide.We…

The Year of the Cat

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And it is pouring cats and dogs on a California afternoonoff the corner of Sunset and Highland.Droplets of sorrow drip down our foreheadas our eyelashes bash back the rain.A woman hands us free tickets to the Merv Griffin show.The bus is about to leave without us.We take…

Arrivals and Departures

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Because of her I got there early, and like I figured, the train was late.

Enter Ghost

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I love that moment in Hamlet when the Ghost first appears. It seems so real, thanks in large measure to Horatio's sober outlook & initial skepticism. It's really happening. Their eyes are popping out of their heads. And it makes me wonder, how would I react if I…

Collect Enough Fragments, You've Got Yourself a Poem

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I. The sun's corona. Empty boxes near the firehouse. Red birth. A bird's lost wing. II. The bitterness of littleness. Apples in a pile.Early love.A spider, swinging. III. A father's harshness.Twelve bills unpaid. Leaves in a crevice. A dream…

The World is Full

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of birds. The world is full of snakes. The world isfull of mushrooms. The world is full of flies. The worldis full of bombs. Not so many trees. Not as many as you might think. The world is full of flowers. Notso many bees. The world is full of rocks. Some…

our measured treads

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—and the god presiding over all / a four-faced, double-Janused clock / its equal seconds clickt away / ticking us our steps and breaths . . .

Sorting It All Out

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To understand how and when things have gone wrong, it works best to proceed from the beginning and put them in order.

The Dog

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The dog is reading. This morning, as every morning, the book is open in front of him. Well before his master's rise, he had already read the moon then dawn and the clouds. Now the slippers, these that walk here and there. Followed by coffee and the pages that turn. A little…

The Starfish and The Pin Joint

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The two boys walked the long dock to the edge of bay,like scrappy lobsters pointing toward the waves,"The cockroaches of the sea,"his father said,It was the old country"Only prisoners were fed lobster.They stayed in the dampholes."He thought the sea ebbed and flowed like a…

Wanting to forget

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I do not want to know what it looks like when a society walks off a cliff's edge,

Map of the World to Come

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The middle finger talks of many things How I killed the moon But still drank the moonshine And how getting over her took Some bleeding from the soul Maybe it’s the Inner Face of Outer Space That worries me the most But what about the Fro

Market Day

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I'd rather slit my wrists with a Triscuit...

Three Micros

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I asked the hospice nurse about maggots.

George Martian (psych eval)

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PROSPER CENTRAL SCHOOLS PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL EVALUATION CONFIDENTIAL Prosper Central…

Take You Me for a Sponge, My Lord?

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Who does that besides Kafka, Arreola, and Steven Wright?