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There is death in my house.
“It's gone to a better place,” she says. "Now flush it down the toilet and wash your hands. Breakfast is ready."
Like that, she cans Juju, our goldfish. She did the same with Didi, Ma’s parrot, ...
Read more: There Are No More Pets in My House
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Tom Whitehead: (In the deep husky Marlboro movie guys voice) HEEEEEEEEEEEER FISHY, FISHY, FISHY!
It was an early Saturday morning. He thought it was just another day of fishing, then all of a sudden out of nowhere he...
Read more: Revenge of the Fishy
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David Porter watched his wife and two sons as they played on the monkey bars at the park. He smiled in contentment as peals of laughter rang out. Two short weeks ago, he’d been in danger of losing his family.
...
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Samael and Malachi, two brothers working for different bosses, sit on the fence dangling their booted feet each on their side of the divide. One pair of boots is caked in white droppings; the other scrubbed clean. It’s like a dare. Trespassing? Not quite. ...
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An elderly woman shuffled up the sidewalk and took a seat on the bench across the way from me. I watched her slow steps and noticed her feet stuck in matted slippers and her swollen discolored ankles. Breathing a sigh of relief, I felt grateful...
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We sat around a campfire in the backyard that evening, our parents and us four kids, aged four to fifteen. Dan, the oldest at nineteen, was in the Army serving somewhere that Mother didn't want to tell us. "You don't need to worry," she said. "I'll...
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The global wealth distribution has been heavily off balance, the scales of capitalism have plunged so far into disproportion they will fall before they will be fair again. Jack and his widowed mother have economically crammed a century of mourning into an egregious year but failed...
Read more: Jack and the Beanstalk
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Smelled: a gamey odor downstairs in the basement. Searched for its source but couldn’t find it.
Found: one dead mouse with reddish-brown legs and a white underbelly in the basement bathroom. A deer mouse. Picked it up with tongs, took it outdoors, and tossed...
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A deep sigh came just as Jason was pulling off the highway onto Route 11. He was close and could feel his back tingling as if his whole spine had suddenly fallen asleep. This happened every time he headed into a small town, no...
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Trish pushed her hair to the side to show off her sparkling diamond earrings. “Alvin just got these for me. I didn’t even have to drop a hint.”
Heather leaned forward for a better look. “Oh Trish, they’re beautiful. And LuAnn, did I see you drive up in a new...
Read more: Yearning - F2k WINNER!
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We’re late
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I had plans for that summer and everything changed because of the marbles. But I’m way ahead of myself.
My brothers, Jeff and Mick, hung around Farmer Tom’s place, feeding chickens and riding on the tractor with him, watching while he milked his yellow cow, Bess. I’d...
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We
I hate the sounds...
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You’re hearing a voice, but no one else hears a sound. It’s a deep distant whisper, soft, safe, and inviting: the words of which you can’t yet make out. The harder you listen, the softer it gets; softer and softer, deeper and deeper. The more you listen to it here, ...
Read more: Abe, the Teenage Hypnotist from Planet Garfunkel
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Brody Carlisle halted his horse on the crest of a shrub-covered hill, slapped his Stetson twice sending dust floating skyward, and after placing it back on his head, coaxed a swallow from his canteen.
To the west, the sun slid behind a scattering of tall pillar-like plateaus. Their...
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Food. Globes of mashed potatoes glistening with a thin layer of gravy, plump slices of pie gushing with ruby red cherries–food
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Stan stood on the sand, crumpled by how many people and birds running and sliding into it today. Now, it was getting dark, the last of the purple, streaky clouds turning black against a pale, gray sky.
Go or stay, just two choices.
He reached down...
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Amos stood on a thick, muscular knoll on the shoulder of a dark river. He shivered, soaking wet from his silver hair to his leather shoes, and stared, disoriented, at the pines across the river. They seemed to stand with their backs to him. Amos felt...
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In July the monsoon rains returned and with them came the little green frogs. Price Aurigena had first seen them in the summer of 1969 when he’d arrived in Korea and now, a year later, they were once again everywhere. Frogs sprang from the ground like exploding popcorn...
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I have studied martial arts all my life: Karate, Judo, Kenpo Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, and Hsing-I, but as I've gotten older, I pretty much stick to Tai Chi. I used to study Tai Chi at a park in Washington, D.C. called Glen Echo Park. It's an old...
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July 20, 1942
Escorted by her eldest brother Neil, Annabell walks across the front lawn to meet Bill. her groom. She is dressed in a long gown of pink net overlying pink point
Read more: Wedding Portrait – Life Portrait
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S is for Scintillation.
Their arms and elbows locked as they vied for control. Major released her grip and dredged her beet-colored nails across his muscled chest. Zane glanced at the four lines of ripped skin, blood dripped onto the rim of his pants. He lunged forward, grabbed...
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Black, ginger, and tortoiseshell felines zoom through the open screen door onto the deck. Black Nic pauses and surveys his domain from the top of the steps. Kittens race down the ramp and scamper into the backyard. Glory, the tortoiseshell, runs to the maple in the corner, ...
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Here am I, on this grey morning, here I am again, entering this day as I entered yesterday and the day before and unless I am spared by death will enter tomorrow and the day after, endlessly growing older with the anxiety that brings, the fear of coming...
Read more: Beckett – you asked for this
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Mattie opened the front door. "I'll be back in a while, Henry," she said, then stepped onto the porch and clicked the door shut.
It opened behind her and Henry stuck out his head. "Wait, I can come with you."
She shook her head. "I need...
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On a Monday afternoon, I carried a bucket of water outdoors to refill the birdbath. A male goldfinch jumped down from the bath’s rim, and hopped away as quickly as he could to creep beneath a nearby spruce branch. I thought how odd he was...
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What does a hero look like?
George Bailey is a hero.
George Bailey dreamed of traveling the world.
George Bailey gave up his dreams to care for his family and community.
Rudy left his family...
Read more: Of Heroes and Holiness
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Another rejection letter and I feel like a loser. Yeah, I know, I’m not trying to make a living doing this. I even claim to be “writing for myself.” Butwe all want validation and, let’s face it, us writers want readers. So here I sit, ...
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In June, I will expect to find my special place in Townsville, Queensland. Last year it was in Darwin, Northern Territory, and today my place is in Hobart, Tasmania.
We live in a truck, a 2004 Isuzu 350NPR turbo automatic...
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This past summer and fall upturned me. The birdfeeder, usually so generous, abdicated her job, and I had to scrounge for food during the long wet season. My mother told me it was unusual to have such a rainy August and October. She would know. I was born...
Read more: A Red Squirrel's Narrative
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This essay is part of a Talk-Back series – I owe that title to Karen. A Talk-Back is my response to a chapter in a WVU textbook, my communication with its author.
This Talk-Back is a response to the exercise in Lia Purpura’s chapter, ‘On Miniatures,’ (Flas...
Read more: Talk-Back, Dear Lia, on FnF
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“Why the F--- Do I want to see
The last time I hung out with my Uncle Dan is when I dragged him to Gatorland to do something touristic. ...
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“Does he look at you?”
My cousin’s innocent question triggers a flashing red warning light in my brain. My baby doesn’t look at me. I assumed he was too young still, but my cousin’s baby is only four days older than mine, and they are...
Read more: A Fear of Broken Things
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It is a joy to hold a lovely scene, a delightful moment, in memory.
~Marjolein Bastin
Frank was four and I was five and getting ready to start school when Dad and Mom moved us into a new house on Glasgow Avenue—a three-bedroom home that wasn't quite finished—in...
Read more: Wild Roses Growing in the Ditch
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At some point, everything comes to an apex. Status quo can only persist for so long before the natural balance of the universe calls for consumption, and then it all comes down to a choice. That’s it, a lone decision that ultimately leads down a pathway to a higher level...
Read more: Hazardous Happenings
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Sending your writing out into the world can be scary whether you write poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. But, at some point, if you are a serious writer, you will do it. Getting a rejection letter back can be more devastating than asking a girl out as a teenager and...
Read more: Dealing with Rejection
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I took an hour to walk outdoors in my yard, first to clip dead honeysuckle branches, pluck dandelions, and then to fill the birdbaths and feeders. And to ponder what to write about one of my backyard neighbors, the gray squirrel, Sciurus
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My four-year-old son has a friend over. I overhear my son’s friend tell my two-year-old daughter, “Gracie, you can’t come in here.” Then my son’s voice: “It’s okay, she can play with us. Here, Gracie,” he says, presumably handing her one of the toys they are playing with. My
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I can hear my parents’ raised voices upstairs. They are fighting again. I turn on the sink faucet, letting the sound of the running water drown out their voices. I thrust my hands in the nearly scalding hot water and methodically scrub each dish in the sink...
Read more: The Weight of Emotions
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I'm sorry that I hadn't thought of how I would take care of a puppy. It had seemed like a good idea, accept the gift of a puppy from acquaintances. She had the coloring of a coyote and was named Brindle for those tawny markings. I'd...
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It was Christmas Day 1950 and my sixth birthday. Under the tree was an unusually long, large box with my name on it. I was excited to open it. I couldn’t wait. When I finally did, I was amazed to look upon the most gorgeous doll I’d...
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I think about death quite a bit. Not morbidly, nor do I worry about what happens when one dies. Although I enjoy a spiritual life, I am also philosophical about the end of my life. If there is something else, it will be darned interesting. If there isn’t, ...
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My father, Thomas George Sawyer, was absent at my birth and absent the first seven months of my life.
It was Christmas Eve 1944 at the two-story white house on Beechwood Drive-my Grannie’s house in Victoria, the capital city of British Colombia on Vancouver Island. Grannie Price, my...
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I'm always looking for ideas to use in writing: for that prompt at which I first gulp and then slowly retrieve some thread of an idea, for the poem I need for the Monday morning poetry group, for an essay that's due in two days.
I've heeded...
Read more: Gathering: A Contemplative Essay
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Last spring, a wild turkey hen incubated her eggs for twenty-eight days. When they hatched, she scrambled to keep up with them. Poults to scientific literature. Babies to her. She didn't need to teach them to scratch for bugs—they came with that instinct. Nighttimes during their first four weeks, ...
Read more: Seasons in a Wild Turkey Hen's Life
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Roles
Teacher – Karen Barr
Student – Joy Manné
Teacher
WELCOME TO WEEK 8 OF SUBTEXT.
There is no word count, but the challenge is to get all ten types of subtext in as few words as possible. Here they are:
Show don’t...
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I woke to warm, gooey air smothering me even though the ceiling fan was spinning on high. Dangling lightpulls smacked and banged the glass globe with each rotation of the blades. The base of the fan swayed and groaned, ready to jump from its screws in the drywall any second.
...
Read more: Teenage Escape Plan
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The mother and father watched as the sun rose on a cold morning in February 1945, wondering if their four-month-old son had lived through the night. Could miracles really happen? Perhaps this child they had wanted so badly wanted wasn’t meant to survive. His mother was a month past her...
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When I flew to California in September, the golden archipelago summer, verdant below and mazarine above, still held sway. Twenty-three days and eleven thousand two hundred and forty miles later, if you’d sat here with me on the back deck this afternoon--you’d know, too--autumn now envelopes Sweden in...
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Thank you, my tech friend,
pretty with back dressed in rose gold
practical with front framed...
Read more: Thank You, My Tech Friend
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Why do you speak and say nothing?
Say everything when you’re silent?
Am I to...
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Up there
inside the tower
with the air filters on the roof
you watch the...
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those evil scourges of civilization
call morning, noon and night,
harass me every day
...
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Ocean holds secrets close. Millions, trillion, gazillions of droplets mixed with millions, trillions and...
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I once met a man from a far distant land, so handsome and charming...
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Two children, girl and boy,
progeny of servants of King Minos,
...
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I
I feel you kick under my heart,
soon my special angel child,
I...
Read more: Lullaby for a Lost Child
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Stand back and look up. Do you see it? Do you?
Alice's rabbit checking...
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I’ll take my pen in hand
crystallize thoughts into ideas
paint magic with...
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Give me the wings of an angel
To lift me above worldly things
Give...
Read more: Give Me The Wings Of An Angel
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(My songwriting attempt)
I want to see all the lights upon a flashing...
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I miss our disagreements, laughter and silent times.
Memories of listening to your...
Read more: Eidolon’s Wind Chimes
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Prose poem: This one was inspired by the poet’s dogs, Jax and Luna.
I cringed...
Read more: Don’t Piss Off (or on) a Yard Gnome
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June 30, 1967, we met on Parliament Hill,
listened to the Centennial music gala,
...
Read more: Do You Remember, AJ?
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Everybody’s gonna have some fun.
Aunt Peggy, Uncle Kris, Sydney...
Read more: Deacon Knox Young is Turning One!
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Today, I saw you for the first time, without disguise, nestled in the corner where...
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sunlight diamonds glitter on the lake,
blind me until I don sunglasses,
warm summer...
Read more: Boardwalk Excursion
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The winner of the April 2019 Poetry Contest!
Summer gasps its last hot breaths,
panting...
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Part of the series: #1 THREE AGES OF WOMAN
TEENAGE TURMOIL
by (Aged 16)
My mind is but...
Read more: Teenage Turmoil - (Aged 16)
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Part of the series: #2 THREE AGES OF WOMAN
FRUSTRATION
BY (Aged 28)
Creation stifled. Each...
Read more: Frustration - (Aged 28)
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Part of the series: #3 THREE AGES OF WOMAN.
MULTIPOTENTAILITE
(Inspired by Lydia Davis to write...
Read more: Multipotentailite - (Aged 80)
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My unfinished deck waits beneath two feet of snow.
The driveway is one long strip of ice,
and...
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In memoriam of Joy, my animal companion, who died January 9, 2018.
Joy crawls out of her sleeping bag,
...
Read more: Joy Crawls Out Of Her Bag
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we meet in online classes,
strangers in
we share
a love of poetry,
a desire...
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snowflakes swirl in a dance
hurl themselves against the window
pine trees rock branches to and fro,
gently, then furiously
...
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I move the mouse
over the pad
type in password
mouse?
did I hear the word mouse?
where...
Read more: Computers and Catspeak
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Based on letters by Private George Walker, written June 12, 1918-July 17, 1918
I got your letter just about lights...
Read more: A Soldier’s Letter Home – A Found Poem
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As I leaf through my manuscript of Ottawa poems, “In the Shadow of the Tower,” I decide to check...
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