"Be like the sun," I told my children, on that autumn day after their mother died. With curious eyes, they glared back at me, beckoning for understanding. "See the sun is a star, and its the only star in our solar system and though it sits in space alone, it freely shares its light and heat with the worlds around it, never asking for thanks or retribution." I thought my words were clever in their inspiration and condolence, when my oldest son, only 5 retorted: "Daddy...the sun can't be a star; t…
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Added by Victor Dandridge on November 15, 2009 at 10:37pm —
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She was angry. This tiny bundle of two was tired and wanted to be held by someone--but everyone was momentarily involved and could not reach down and comply. Tired, rejected, and quick of temper, she explodes in a fit of crying anger. Her mother, in a gesture of momentary compromise, offers a peace offering of a small tidbit to eat. The imp--the angel--the cherub--takes the offered morsel, half turns to face the dining room entrance, lifts her hand gripping the edible insult up and then back ove…
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Added by B.R.Stateham on November 15, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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She sat in the car outside the school hall, listening to the ping of the engine cooling while she waited for her daughter to finish dance class. In her mind she compiled a list of all the things she had to do; all the things that made her wait: collect her son from sport, guess her husband’s return time from work and sort the three foot high pile of washing. She glanced at her watch, wanting to hurry the time, and then watched the hall doors for a glimpse of pink tulle to come running.
“What are…
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Added by Adam Byatt on November 15, 2009 at 6:06pm —
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The impact was deafening. Dull thuds of pain spread from his eyebrows down to his cheeks and neck then rushed over his still body leaving tingling sensations to rest in the tips of his fingers and toes. From somewhere near he could hear staccato clips of sound, words maybe, building in volume and speed that somehow, he knew, was meant as a warning. Convinced that he had mere seconds to react, Remy rolled over onto his stomach and pushed up on his knees. Suddenly, a load of invisible pressure res…
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Added by Norman Ublies on November 15, 2009 at 5:30pm —
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essence electrical pulses
tears crying untouched land
tuned signals macro existence
problems ashes to masses
reality denied evolutionary life
seeking G-D released cells
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Added by Suzanne on November 15, 2009 at 3:00pm —
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disenthralled #2 is up. Some familiar names to readers of 6S. Bruce Brown, Amy Kelly, Quin Browne, Jeffrey S. Callico, Len Kuntz, Allie Dresser, Jodi MacArthur. Photography by Paul Dutra, my partner at the mag, and Pamela Smith....
Read Issue #2
HERE.
Comments appreciated.
Walter
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Added by Walter Conley on November 15, 2009 at 1:01pm —
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You wonder how I know all this, given that my face ain’t so familiar ‘round these parts. On these matters, I’m acquainted as I need to be with Farriday. I know its dirt and its poison like a man knows a woman’s husband by her black eye. I see how much rust is up on the sign for the tool and dye mill, I see how no one except them new Cadillac Escalades go up by the quarry, I see the marks on the insides of the legs of this town’s best-dressed girls, and I know what Farriday’s business is. I don’t…
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Added by M C Funk on November 15, 2009 at 12:21pm —
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My friend once asked, "Do you want to come out to the gay bar with me?"
I replied, "Thank you very much for the invite, but maybe another time when the guys won't feel me up."
I had some other friends say that I didn't go because I am a Christian boy. I said that I was quite sincere in my reply and love my friend no matter what bells you put on me.
So I said to my friends, "I'm kind of hungry, why don't we go out to that steak house where they prepare it before your eyes."
They said, "Now why wo…
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Added by Matthew Hickerson on November 15, 2009 at 12:21pm —
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I was troubled, inside kind of troubled, hide-it-from-the-world kind of troubled, the worst kind of troubled. Ambling through Stop & Shop's produce section, in quest-selection of perfect green peppers, on the way home from works on a Friday night, I sensed his presence, I felt his presence, but I couldn't see his presence . . .
and then, there he was ~ a short, strong, older dark haired man, asking with a different kind of inner light, "Pardon, would you please show me where the small…
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Added by Absolutely*Kate on November 15, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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I learned all about that last year at my old school. The old school where I fit in. Where I had friends and where I knew everyone, where I'd been going to school since kindergarten. The old school where I was popular and where I had a boyfriend. The old school, where I wasn't some outsider moving in where I was neither wanted or where I wanted to be. The new school, where I am now, is Disappointment Cove High School in Disappointment Cove, Missouri. I'm not kidding, that's the name.
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Added by Lori L. Clark on November 15, 2009 at 11:54am —
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The voodoo man laughed in the down pour of rain, while the lecher man sat with his bottle of bourbon in the mud by the church. The preacher man roared like a freight train leaving the station, and the lecher man clutched his tract ever more tight.
"Boy did you hear God's voice in the rain? Or was the thunder crashing down too sharp for your over doused brain?"
"Your voice is harsh, and the air around you reeks of foul smelling things...did you kill your chickens slowly, or laugh while the fires…
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Added by Matthew Hickerson on November 15, 2009 at 11:30am —
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Ah, Nick, once reluctant star,
what possessed you to share with us
the workings of your soul
then retreat back into a place
of cold, pitiless terrain.
where did you go? to the depths of hell?
for what purpose did you travel there?
or, were you taken hostage
by headhunters who gorge on brain current,
heart hunters who dispirit us, and rob our sleep?
what good does our love, their love, do you now?
when whether by accident or design the
sleep you longed for came too late,
stayed too long, distille…
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Added by Linda Ryan-Harper on November 15, 2009 at 11:03am —
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On the hundredth day of his walk, Kaylan awoke from a fitful sleep to see a burning city in the sky. He blinked his eyes a couple of times, thinking he might clear the leftover cobwebs of a dream, but the city still burned. He got up off the hard surface of the escarpment and stamped his feet against the cold, then he looked up. The city was still there.
It was thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of metres above him, an enormous rectangle with four great towers climbing up from each corner, not…
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Added by Bob Clay on November 15, 2009 at 4:47am —
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‘What is beauty?’ I ask you.
You take my hand and lead me to the mirror. You point at the reflection of you and I and you make me smile.
‘What is beauty?’ you ask me.
You look at me and smile your witty smile and instantly that ties a knot in my tummy, make me feel angelic. I look down and in silence you know what I mean.
If you want to read the rest please read and vote at
WHAT IS BEAUTY?
EVERY 5 STAR c…
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Added by Thirsty Desert on November 15, 2009 at 4:08am —
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Sparkling you fall from high above. Are you tears, are you a cleansing, or are you just many small drops? I wonder what has brought your visit. Besides a range of emotions, going back and forth, up and down, left to right. Same as you, as if to tell us how you feel. I'm thankful I brought my umbrella.
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Added by Erick Ian Gael on November 15, 2009 at 3:34am —
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The shadows of heights, swallowed by the Serpent.
The damp, stirring murmurs culled, tasted, worshipped.
A mirth of blood, longing for the uncertain venoms.
The quiet fragments lost to the impartial substance.
The fables and mists gathered for the challenge.
The insistent eye, incomplete, stares across the long forgotten.
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Added by Hazar Worth on November 15, 2009 at 2:51am —
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The darkness held Rick like the curious breath of thick guaze surrounding the obscene kiss of a severe burn wound, offering him only enough comfort to deny him any real or substantial waters of reprieve.
Voices bit, pierced, gnawed away at him while Rick's mind became the Ancient carrion feasting upon the unforeseen ruins and greasy soils drenched in the rancid fluids of an epic battlefield existing underneath the dimming Suns of some foreign Consciousness erupting from Rick's memories.
'Here…
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Added by Hazar Worth on November 15, 2009 at 2:33am —
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They had arrived this morning; Ann did not have to open the envelope to know what lived inside. Twelve years had come to rest in the form of typed sentences and crisp sheets of paper. She had placed them on the center table in the living room and sat on the couch and stared.
That was ten hours ago.
Ann knew that prolonging would not erase; that at some point she would have to open that brown evelope. But not now.
Now she took a swig of vodka, closed her eyes and tried to silence the noise of tho…
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Added by Tenesha on November 14, 2009 at 10:54pm —
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The police were astonishingly polite. They knocked at Richard’s front door, waited patiently for Richard to come to the door, and when he answered, they explained that they were conducting a routine investigation of an auto theft, and wanted ask him “just a few questions.” They even called him “sir.”
As one officer, a lumbering man who looked as if he had killed many criminals in his career, began to ask Richard if he had any knowledge of a couple that he may have seen walking along Mulholland…
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Added by Brad Rose on November 14, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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It was oh so quiet on the Viking front.
The Princess was relieved.
The Yak Yak audio quilt was sometimes still ringing in her ears.
The Blah Blah Blah was sometimes still reverberating in her soul.
She was ready for more Love and less Yak Yak Blah Blah.
Luckily the Universe was full of it, Love that is, even more abundant that one Vikings YakYakBlahBlah.
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Added by PrincessOfNottingHill on November 14, 2009 at 10:23pm —
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With Condolences to My Sun
It was . . . Beautiful!
Waiting - A Triptych: Part 1
The Reaping
Evolutionary Contusion
New Issue of DISENTHRALLED
Two Lies (II) - Farriday
Chime the Disposition
*Peppers and Zen*
Beauty's Beholder - More NaNoWriMo - 7 not 6
Burning City
Beauty
Rain
Alchemy (vii)
Separation Part 2
Lying to the Police
The Princess and the Princess
