Most discussed stories

Redline Deadline

12751275 views22 comments11 fav

I ran for the car, heart pounding in my chest, feverish. I jerked the door open and dropped into the seat of the Audi S5. The ignition fired and the car purred to life. I dropped it into gear and hit the gas, tires spinning, gravel spraying. The treads caught on the hot …

hands

10971097 views22 comments22 favs

He cleaned off the pump with a steel brush. Then he took it out to the pressure washer. Out there was where a lady that looked like a witch used to move around and sit on the fences like a crow. The air was humid, and the men were dressed in heavy blue coveralls.…

Seventy

961961 views22 comments11 fav

She was a rich widow who lived down the street.

The Song in the American Soul

665665 views22 comments22 favs

They are riding through the wild onion of life One layer at a time Turning the world inside out Looking for the unusual patterns Inside the gaping muscle of space With its heart-pounding unnatural heat

War Bride

10831083 views22 comments00 favs

Maria met her husband in World War Two. Maria is now eighty-two. She is from the country of Tuscany. She has lived in may countries. She was a war bride. She has a son. Maria's son is sixty-three. As a baby-boomer he won't retire until sixty-five Maria says.…

Trophy

14611461 views22 comments11 fav

I remember ...all the teenagers offered no-longer favored CDs, last year's cell phones, third-place trophies, team jerseys, played-out videogame cartridges, and candy-colored miniature stuffed animals...

Will Your Relationship Survive the Holidays?

11111111 views22 comments11 fav

For eight years I have been living with a man named Darren Fletcher, who I will refer to as “Bud” to preserve his anonymity.

The Grinder

10541054 views22 comments11 fav

"For several days thinking they had found a dead man’s boot beside the highway..."

Winter in the Hague

901901 views22 comments22 favs

There is only me and the crooked pavement that leads to your dim tower.

Siren

887887 views22 comments11 fav

There it it again, that noise. That low hum that I know so well now, spinning, gaining momentum in my head, like a cyclist in a velodrome, until its steadiness and roundness becomes sharp, painful, cutting like glass.

What's Done, What's Left to Do

10951095 views22 comments00 favs

When she was just a little bit younger, Dana wanted to be known around town as something other than the girl who used up all the machines at the laundromat with her little brothers' Spiderman underwear and her grandpa's pants soiled with God-knows-what. Something…

City Streak

10191019 views22 comments11 fav

the little crummy salon that churned out little fat women with pinked curly hair

what audible skill

971971 views22 comments11 fav

We all heard the audible skill you had, speaking smoothly of our lives, saying audibly what has driven us, who are huge with night, rising with its origin inside, and clear water running past, beyond, behind, and after us. To honor, to fear utteranc

Loveletters

12541254 views22 comments22 favs

The leadoff hitter must be comfortable accepting that he will almost never be the hero and will not be anyone's favorite and he will not be the baseball card that is traded for simply because his skills and abilities are subtle.

Berto and Cosi

14551455 views22 comments00 favs

Berto had come to live with me a month earlier. He’d been cursed by being the favored child of our parents. Their indulgence resulted in a 40 year old man and heroin addict from age 17 and all that accompanies such an existence such as thievery, larcen

fields of gold

993993 views22 comments22 favs

The son stood on the porch with his grip packed. "I'm off to mine me a fortune a gold, Daddy." "Boy, there's a fortune in gold right here," said the father, indicating the ripe wheat, glowing in early morning sun. The kid slumped. "Pop, you turn over a rock there,…

Souvenirs

12261226 views22 comments22 favs

It is a hot August night — the same kind you remember from that summer after high school graduation. A cool breeze blows in off the ocean, sweeping across the boardwalk just hard enough to dry the …

rewind...

950950 views22 comments00 favs

here’s the deal… sorrow follows tears… pain later for the happiness now… is the joy something we only borrow…?

Haiku for Jogging

12211221 views22 comments11 fav

Haiku for Jogging

Myself Today

12791279 views22 comments22 favs

Suddenly I'm not feeling it anymore. / Poetry has become insufficient. / I can't do it like I used to.

Compression

959959 views22 comments00 favs

A fabulous compression.

And You--And You--And You

10351035 views22 comments11 fav

“Good to see you, old man,” Greg said. He was like that, an investment banker, a latter-day Tom Buchanan without the polo ponies, self-consciously fusty.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 6

13011301 views22 comments11 fav

Sure my man. Show me the token I’ll show you the slice.

Self-Mutilation on Rise Among Motivational Speakers

985985 views22 comments11 fav

Doreen takes Butchie’s hand, steadies it in the can opener, counts “One-two-three”–and slams the chrome handle down.

The Condescending Skies of June

11001100 views22 comments22 favs

I have become a prisoner of my own fractured mind/ A paranoid weirdo behind the horizontal bars of window shades

chicken coup

13451345 views22 comments22 favs

" I have no idea what's goin on out here, and I'm gonna find out one way or another."

MoonEarth Collision: A Disaster Story

21752175 views22 comments11 fav

“My fellow Americans,” says his boss, leader of the free world. “The orbit of the moon has been disturbed. No longer revolving around the earth, the moon now hurtles toward the earth. Impact is expected within days.

The World Passing By On a Double-Decker Tourist Bus in NYC

904904 views22 comments22 favs

They’ve got the tourists On the top deck of the bus Wrapped up in large yellow Plastic garbage bags Riding through the City in the rain The yellow bags flapping in the wind Yelling in the numerous languages At the top of the world The to

(Younger Driest)

10921092 views22 comments00 favs

He did not seek a place on a cabinet, nor to impress stockholders with placards of wealth and return; he did not enumerate the downtrodden and asocial with advertised miracle treatments, or write a best seller on the markings of success. All he did, all h

Kingfish

11311131 views22 comments00 favs

Time stole you from underneath the goldendock. Writhing there, slick as a flapping tongue;lips gored, red, whose gaping could embolden weak hands behind the blazing buck blade, long ago pierced in your summer quietus, beneath the soft shade of a tackle box, as the…