Most discussed stories

The Duck Economy

11791179 views33 comments33 favs

It's early spring and rains leave miniature ponds not deep but attractive to a Drake and Mallard pair moving into the neighborhood settling quacking down. Not sensing transience in their comfortable puddle they get on swimmingly bottom…

Tinsel

14231423 views33 comments22 favs

1. It started coming down in flakes. The room was warm and the windows were double insulated, but she was naked and her body was being dressed in snow. He stood over her with the spray can. Maybe you can be the Christmas tree this year. You won't keep me till Christmas she…

Phantasmagoria

18791879 views33 comments11 fav

I sit in my chemise like a forgotten rag doll on the stool before my vanity. My body is postured towards nothing in particular, my gaze keeps returning to vacant; it’s far preferable to any fixed sight it could find.

Two poems

14971497 views33 comments22 favs

I cut myself. Often. The bloodslice like thin lips parted/in prayer. life’s color drained to ashen/as the old world spins, pirouettes/like a circus dog on the back/of a galloping horse.

Nude Ascending the Stairway to Heaven

10821082 views33 comments33 favs

Whoever told us that truth-telling was so wonderful, when we can plainly see that lying is the way to get results?

The Perfect Note

14471447 views33 comments00 favs

Everything needs context, otherwise reality would be nothing more than stardust with a spark.

Go Running Up That Hill

12111211 views33 comments33 favs

Better move ‘cause I hear them comin’ up the other side.

Professional Judgment

11001100 views33 comments11 fav

Biting my tongue instead of lashing red stripes

2011

12811281 views33 comments11 fav

This year, 2011, you bring about my thirtieth year. I'm apprehensive about this, but mainly because my father made me watch "Logan's Run" as a kid...

Swan Song of the Pareto Optimalists

12901290 views33 comments33 favs

I nearly burst out laughing when I heard myself telling him in my accented English that she’d confided in me that she was preparing to sacrifice herself as part of an elaborate snuff film produced by a band of psychotic artists hell-bent on making up for

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 17

13391339 views33 comments22 favs

Friday night in Little Italy is a big night.

The Passenger

11901190 views33 comments33 favs

I will not leave the boat. The sea has left you.

Worst. Party. Ever.

12181218 views33 comments11 fav

"The food tastes kind of...off."

The Parallel World of the Tango

10611061 views33 comments11 fav

I dreamed I might one day become the numero uno tango singer in Boston.

Industrial Revelation

11561156 views33 comments33 favs

I tell my students about a timewhen seniority was told by the number of fingers on a worker's hands No weekends or overtime, children — bare toes dangling — twelve hours on the line I look for…

Bonnie the Baptized

38633863 views33 comments22 favs

Also, our daughter had learned to splash, causing us each time to break into spontaneous renditions of “Splish Splash (I Was Taking a Bath),” which made us not mind so much that we were getting covered in water.

Postcards from a Private Park

12041204 views33 comments11 fav

First movement I. The town that I…

The Country Star

984984 views33 comments22 favs

He’s got horns and a tail I found him on sale He’s got snake in his DNA Evil in his eye And plenty of chicken pot, chicken pot Chicken pot pie But he sure can play piano With those giant lobster hands In his ratty raccoon coat And his

Dancing Beneath a Gazebo

16981698 views33 comments11 fav

We learned to dance beneath a gazebo / in Spring Lake Park / We were fourteen

Smart Bar

16141614 views33 comments11 fav

Everything is painted black that isn’t glass, velvet, neon, or chrome. The club is cold, and the DJ who broke-up with me while I forgot I was stoned is spinning his favorites to an empty floor. Endings have a rhythm. I heard this one coming. I can hear it

Poetry is like baseball

19651965 views33 comments33 favs

Poetry is like baseball.

(little miracles)

665665 views33 comments11 fav

The little miracle of leaking milk from our skin The miracle of two mouths attached at the lips The miracle of inhaling another human’s essence at the onset of remembrance and the extensive and naturally occurring miracle of seeing someo

Death

16241624 views33 comments22 favs

fate is an illusion we use to ease the terror of our mortality

The Sound of Paper

11681168 views33 comments00 favs

From the earth it erupts Growing longer, stronger, as the sun rises and sets Days and nights pass, bringing the wind, the rain, the moon, the stars A place of shelter it becomes

OUT

16351635 views33 comments22 favs

All I wanted was to love her.

VCR CIA

17281728 views33 comments22 favs

When VCRs were invented in the 1970s, the first big user segment was people who wanted to watch porno films in the comfort of their own home. Troy and Lynn's upstairs neighbor, James, an enlisted man in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, had a vast porn…

Halfsies

12781278 views33 comments33 favs

You and she might make love here, next week, and I'll buy my own razor, switch from baths to showers. I shave my legs in my imagination. They, like life, are smooth.

Chrysanthemums

9595 views33 comments22 favs

.

Seishin

22642264 views33 comments11 fav

The Japanese sun, blood-red and vibrant, like a Cézanne apple, was setting far away in the distance over the snow-capped peak of Mt. Fuji. For a moment, the intensity of the light blinded him. He could not see the road ahead. His front bicycle wheel wobb

The Eleventh Brother, After the Swan

14561456 views33 comments22 favs

I turned a maiden to a witch / and back again