Most discussed stories

The Underwater Afterlife of Memory

14671467 views66 comments33 favs

My fingers are shining in the underwater afterlife of memory searching for the nipple-sized mollusks searching for the solid nature of things left over from having lived a life at all That new rain smell, specifically I remember that,

Ackermann

14631463 views66 comments77 favs

When he took Medieval German Lit in graduate school, Ackermann read Der Ackermann aus Böhmen by Johannes von Tepl. His professor was amused both by his last name and that his grandparents were Germans from Bohemia. Of course, only his grandmother was from Bohemia and…

Women on Motorcycles

818818 views66 comments55 favs

Do you want this, you ask, and hand me a blue silk shirt of hers with small yellow flowers. I'm afraid to say no, in case it makes you remember all over again.

Parables for Rodin

890890 views66 comments22 favs

His beard is an eighteenth-century forest / in south central France

If You Are Without Mercy

828828 views66 comments44 favs

"The opposite of fear is not courage but compassion."--Peter J. Gomesyou are going to die amost pitiful death from your own tearsof crushing boredom. Crying overyour self you will probablynever understand how it is asimple blue-capped flower savesthe world,…

The Train

12631263 views66 comments44 favs

"You'll be alright! Just pinch your nose!"

a poem by Darryl Price restructured by Samuel Derrick Rosen

298298 views66 comments55 favs

.

Song of Another Country

13651365 views66 comments44 favs

And she warms her hands on fresh-cut gizzards, And he forgets the taste of honeyed peaches

Summoned by the Board

12931293 views66 comments66 favs

They were all sitting naked in a sauna and drinking Diet Coke, with droopy ball sacks and sweat rolling over massive man titties and paunches. Yahweh sat on an upper bench, wearing dark goggles to protect his eyes from the brightness of his own still radi

Playing with Fire

16961696 views66 comments22 favs

Six sentences

The Bad Things

11481148 views66 comments11 fav

Daddy comes home, calls us to his room, makes us stand in line, tells us to do it again...

From a Street-Lit Dark Room

12891289 views66 comments33 favs

Whenever trees or limbs fell in isolate forests—well, no narrators were ever to be found, not even beneath the larger tree trunks or under the fallen limbs.

The Naming of Girls

12771277 views66 comments66 favs

I sneak glances of her unhooking the clasp, taking it off, so that her back is bare, and I can see the muscles, the bones underneath move as she puts the new one on...

Even in the Same Room

974974 views66 comments44 favs

as you are, there's a big floating arm that separates both of us from each other. Widening, like a river, it touches us together often, but still keeps us drifting apart. The banks of your new life have different weeds and flowers…

Gun Love

798798 views66 comments55 favs

That was the year I got my Daisy bee-bee gun for Christmas....

Amputee

26422642 views66 comments11 fav

He is my daughter's son and his father's worst enemy.

Stuffed Shirt

11161116 views66 comments33 favs

It was the losers’ bar in my neighborhood.

The Whore

14141414 views66 comments66 favs

The man and the whore lay in bed together. It was a cold night and they were warmed by the heat beneath the…

WHIPS, TEARS AND BLOOD:

12461246 views66 comments00 favs

A needle passed through my lungs. My breathing made the needle pierce deeper. I felt anger rise up within me but I determined not to cry. – I had cried enough. No more tears. Arossi looked at me, probably expecting me to cry. I didn’t

Puppet On a String

901901 views66 comments33 favs

Spring break that year, (1963) I spent nearly every minute with Lynda. Her taste for sex was unquenchable once we’d gotten started. We did it in every position possible. The sitting position in the front seat of the car, which my brother Herb had to expla

The Misfortune 500

13351335 views66 comments55 favs

When I first started out in my working career, I made it the habit of obtaining jobs with companies that were about to go under. (I wrote more books while on unemployment than by any other method.) I was a real bloodhound at sniffing out the pre-dawn od

There's a Panther in my Poodle

15641564 views66 comments55 favs

There are glasses in the sinkfrom the water that I drink.And the books in my li-braryare not dumb and ordinary.There's a doggie at my door;did I go to the pet store?There's a puppy on my couch-ywho was happy, now she's grouchy.Was a writer, now an authoror an otter; no, an…

Stranded on Jamaica Street

104104 views66 comments44 favs

There are horse drawn carriages, gentlemen in top hats, it's the turn of some century, before souls were stored in jars.

Twenty Questions

15991599 views66 comments22 favs

Did you take out the trash? Did you water the ficus? Did you cancel the cable? Did you take my black sweater? Did you tell the neighbors? Will you get the friends? What about the cat? Will you send me a Christmas card? Will I tear it up? Did you know…

The Mosaic Thief

16931693 views66 comments11 fav

Bit by bit I was traveling away, we thought. Maybe I’d join myself, all together, in Toronto. Or in an industrial coffee can. Or in the closet. “Check the closet,” I pointed.

White Room

12541254 views66 comments22 favs

A white room is empty but for you, a card table and a chair.

Some Girl

12141214 views66 comments22 favs

Oh, crap! Once you leave your body like that, why do you have to come back down to earth? That’s what I want to know. I remember you wearing English Leather aftershave. Anytime I catch a whiff of it now, it brings back some intense memories! And I r

The Tourists

13711371 views66 comments55 favs

They acquire him in a bar that is famous for its shipwrecks.

On Deciding Not to Be a Bitch

11111111 views66 comments11 fav

Deny yourself that pleasure For my sake; that feeling beyond measure That you get when you finally, and with much angst, Decide not to be a bitch, to a round of general thanks.

Mumbles

13641364 views66 comments44 favs

We bobbed and weaved using our words like the sniffs of two unfamiliar dogs in a Wal-mart parking lot. Wary, but sensing we could be more than just polite neighbors, once we got past the normal darkness of strangers. There was no plot to our story yet, but we both seemed to…