Most discussed stories

The Mosaic Thief

17311731 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

13081308 views66 comments22 favs

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

Some Girl

12641264 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

14191419 views66 comments55 favs

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

On Deciding Not to Be a Bitch

11611161 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

14031403 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…

To The Little Mouse Who Started Feeling Slightly Nauseous

11591159 views66 comments55 favs

I heard them praying to some god none of us had ever heard of. I'm glad I went to the funeral and still have the yellow rose that I did not throw into his grave. At some point you have to stop nibbling from the moldy cake.

I Dreamt I Was Vermeer

705705 views66 comments33 favs

I dreamt I was Vermeer For just a little while I took this photo of a criminal A mugshot really And claimed I had painted it From memories of a previous life He looked just like a Vermeer With the light coming in From the side of his fac

Shadow Play

13641364 views66 comments11 fav

I was quite alone in this small room with the tarp and the dying fire.

D Evil in the D

18661866 views66 comments33 favs

when the devil dies he divides enough evil for everybody

Strangeness

13331333 views66 comments22 favs

The goose on the roof isn’t aware it is doing anything odd...

Don't You Think

10241024 views66 comments44 favs

a war forever seems so sadly stupid, pretty petty on our perky part in the ongoing play, a terrible loosed thing to have to always keep holding up our hostage hands to-- at least when being compared to…

Bootsy Goes on a Bender

15021502 views66 comments33 favs

Bootsy awoke with a hangover that only brain surgery could cure, a hangover that caused a seam to open in the known universe, leaving Bootsy on one side while all other matter sped away, away.

A Dream History of Outer Space

10511051 views66 comments66 favs

Look. There's just you and me, that's all that's left. All the rest of them had already given up a long, long time ago. They dropped their precious, colorful dreams like rusted railroad lanterns, like abandoned pumpkins, and littered the Twitching…

Prayer

13281328 views66 comments55 favs

Prayer

A Monologue About Skyscrapers

17181718 views66 comments66 favs

Everyday the buildings seem to be getting taller and taller.

This Is Not Your Poetry

10121012 views66 comments55 favs

Your begging hands are hacking me up again like garden claws that know not the difference between a delicate solar powered flower and a tightening choke of killing weeds.It's not like it's even mine to keep-- like a legal document I'd…

Mom at Night

12711271 views66 comments22 favs

Mom stayed up all night again Tending to her papers Pushing them around Trying to make order of the debts, the dreams and the obligations She couldn't get the columns to add up, So she shuffled them around some more and Rearranged the piles …

For J.S. Bach’s Three-hundred-twenty-eighth Birthday

12011201 views66 comments55 favs

To listen is to feel embodied reason// sing and dance with consummate grace

Pins

15521552 views66 comments77 favs

The wind is wet today I can't tell you where sky meets sea only that it matters I can't explain why. I've triedCan't see the horizonbut I know that we have drawn itfingers tracing far pastthe edge of blind infinitywhere we sang stars to sleepand pinned our…

Air Conditioning Bill

13761376 views66 comments77 favs

The last night, I shivered in bed until three a.m., the blankets wouldn’t work, or the socks, or my tears, but I reassured my heart that my next love would be warmer. 
He was. 
And our air conditioning bill was so high we could’t afford it.

The Lateness of the Night Lies Dreaming

16191619 views66 comments33 favs

Your finger quivers as it writes Upon me words in water, Words I cannot read nor drink But feel them as you drink Them with your tongue

Graven Images

11591159 views66 comments55 favs

Mother hated a crucifix. Graven, she said. Evidence that Catholics weren't saved, just stuck in ceremony. Jesus had risen and anyone who had to pray in Latin, count beads or confess to robed men who took orders from a monarch didn't know…

INGOB

15331533 views66 comments55 favs

They think Van Gogh heard music when he looked at his starry nights. Working at a Bingo parlor, you get to believing in a one-in-a-million shot just as much as you doubt the rarity of a sure thing. I only worked part time at the bingo parlor because I ne

77 Words Sparked by Insomnia

12521252 views66 comments55 favs

Mice dreams are a reality ...

Feb 5

11081108 views66 comments44 favs

He peels the garlic while I stir the lentils; he chops the cilantro while I peel kale leaf from stem. Also, the rings. Also, no one is going anywhere.

Spiral

781781 views66 comments11 fav

When collapse is a wave that curls the floor under itself I give myself to it

Ripping Good Poetry Lures Boys Who Curse With Verse

13151315 views66 comments33 favs

Pringy practices an aesthetic variant of the “muscular Christianity” that is a tradition at Groton; a program of Sunday poetry classes for boys who violate the school’s ban on swearing.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 25

12421242 views66 comments44 favs

It was 6 a.m. when the phone next to the bed awakened Francesco.

Hoss Men (divided)

12241224 views66 comments44 favs

Agents I have little idea. Woiwode partly supported his family in the 60s by publishing in The NYer (his friends were De Niro and Barthelme) so perhaps there was little trouble in his finding one. E.W. met his at a bar. He publishes in Paris and Texas.