Most discussed stories

halloween haiku

19031903 views88 comments77 favs

a dry bony voice/from a desiccated soul/coughs up its own throat.

Machine-Gunning Butterflies

18371837 views88 comments33 favs

I was making good bread as a New York studio musician and jingle writer, anonymous back-room jobs.

Parcel

18301830 views88 comments66 favs

you hear the knell of kindness long before its cathedral voices -- a recessional -- barters better times.

Chapel of a Latter Day Agoraphobic

12911291 views88 comments55 favs

The thrum and the thrust// have beaten conviviality out of me.

Lunatic Fruit

18991899 views88 comments66 favs

wild eyes open your iris sunrise

Confessions of a Cursing Librarian

16671667 views88 comments44 favs

Under no circumstances can you say "fuck" when you're working in a public library. Especially in the junior room.

THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES

18411841 views88 comments77 favs

The blues were born on the ghost train that rolled through the Delta and gave Memphis breath back in 1902. It's low moaning sound brought young black men running, dogs hot in pursuit, toward glory that danced in a moonlight…

ANYONE but Shakespeare

24412441 views88 comments66 favs

Shakespeare was Shakespeare, after all, the greatest poet the language has ever boasted: why did Shakespeare’s contemporaries even bother with their paltry efforts?

When the Moon Blooms

17201720 views88 comments66 favs

Your faded presence in sepia dream returns, firelight whispers and vanilla scented ash. We were a beautiful knot: sinew and hemp, burlap and magnolia petal, concrete and vapor. Gray kisses hovered overhead, misty…

Indestructible

10551055 views88 comments22 favs

With furrowed brow, he took the plastic stems and began to beat the blossom ends against the black brick wall.

A Paper that Changes Things

16121612 views88 comments11 fav

The dowdy woman in fart nailed the vim.

12 Dreams

17041704 views88 comments00 favs

That dog again; enduring love.

YMCA

13241324 views88 comments00 favs

absolute bullshit

Lingua Materna, Lingua Imperiale

13211321 views88 comments77 favs

arrogant, sullen,/ supple and ambiguous,// English seems the ideal tongue

Against Romanticism

17801780 views88 comments55 favs

And because the film is French, the camera pauses / long moments at the curve of her neck, it watches/ her finger vermilion tulips in a vase. Her new lover,/ a wisp of a man, looks good in leather./ The camera pans quickly across beige suede,/ rests long

500 Words or Less

24512451 views88 comments77 favs

A brief commentary on the uselessness of endings.

Double Sonnet I

13481348 views88 comments55 favs

We love our other animals

Chapter Two: Oracle

15911591 views88 comments77 favs

The first thing I saw was a sandal, but it didn't exactly look priestly. It was golden and glowing, and the foot it was strapped to had red painted nails. The straps wrapped around her ankles, and up her slender leg, tied off in a bow below the knee.

1 col 24 point heading here

13841384 views88 comments22 favs

I had ink for blood then and “the news” was my oxygen.

How to Travel with your Demons (1)

26182618 views88 comments66 favs

Someone's shaking powdered sugar on the tree limbs. Someone's turned out the lights. It's a beautiful morning.

Museum Pieces

13871387 views88 comments77 favs

The lecturers are retired professors from Oxford or Cambridge. They are snarky and wise and aloof.

Swoon

16971697 views88 comments77 favs

Tender veterinarian, even if you weren't so tall, or your eyes so warm, or your fingers so long, or if you didn't bend over my sick cat with such astounding grace, or shoot those quick, intense glances at me, I'd have woven dreams while in your uncommon presence. Vulnerable…

Loveless Lover

14361436 views88 comments55 favs

Love me like a crutch Love me when I'm strong

Still Life with a Bottle of Olives

20432043 views88 comments55 favs

On the table the image is by Chardin but the puzzle is by someone else and that is what he has dumped out of the box.

Greenback Fly

16051605 views88 comments77 favs

It doesn't take a genius to figure how he sank, in the drink, like Jeff Buckley. Like a stone.

Three Houses Down

18371837 views88 comments33 favs

I walked on hot coals. She got ahead of me. (228 words)

Norm Never Says

17031703 views88 comments33 favs

He was supposed to be a garden gnome. Give pause to the squirrels, keep an eye on the impatiums. We found him at Wegman’s. He looked hopeful and observant.

Snake Eyes

16211621 views88 comments55 favs

Not believing enough in God he was made unfortunate. Neither cursed nor damned; merely little things. Missing rides, running out of toilet paper, showing up late. Until, suspecting someone he had overlooked, he chose a God. The wrong One it transpired. Things…

Our Enormous Fat Man

12321232 views88 comments88 favs

Pity would have been appropriate. Yet, townsfolk whispered behind his back. Shouldn't he do something about it. So lazy. A gluttonous swine. Hadn't his mother kept him too long at tit, breastfeeding ‘til four? Look. Look at him now. A fat man. Our enormou

Against Poetry

12881288 views88 comments11 fav

If you had a choice, be a poet or not, I’d suggest prose for the lines that you jot.