Most discussed stories

Mexican Audio

13291329 views11 comment11 fav

Chromio citrio sticky-floored furio...

The Runt of the Litter

692692 views11 comment00 favs

Little Dave, I thought--what's he doin' drinking coffee? Then I figured out he must have been 18 if I was twenty. He could drink coffee if he wanted.

The $64,000 Question

12741274 views11 comment00 favs

One day over a hardscrabble dinner of gristly beef and lumpy mashed potatoes, his uncle looked up at him and said, “Kee-rist, boy, school’s gonna start any day now. And winter ain’t far behind. I can’t keep you here. We gotta figure out something for you.

All Of My Monsters And Beautiful Women In Dreams

14171417 views11 comment00 favs

1. Lamia I slapped the venomous dream from his mouth before he could spit in my eyes; fuck him and his rage, fucking Tonton Macoute or whatever he was--and I got the hell out and away from that house and the fires that raged on all floors, and I fled…

Beyond Penderecki

15031503 views11 comment22 favs

From a window, the young Pole Krzysztof Penderecki saw resistance fighters hanged by Nazis...

Let's All Go Down to the Rising River

10811081 views11 comment00 favs

As the pastor of a small southern church, I'm often asked by our younger members about this prickly notion of global warming. They herd around me, as adolescents are prone to do, and they ask me, “Dear father, is this something that we should fear, these…

My Old Man, Across a Hotel Pool in the Bahamas

10311031 views11 comment00 favs

Three guys playing “Cocoanut water, rum and gin” on steel drums, guitar and trap set outside on the deck by the pool.

Possum

13691369 views11 comment22 favs

A possum sits on a fence. The fence is downtown in a not-very-big town. Hard to say about possums and fences; this is not the first possum to sit on a fence. Once, during a suburban backyard party a possum sat on a fence and observed. Before long he could walk more…

Steel and Spell

12781278 views11 comment11 fav

Pen or sword? Pick one/choose your battles carefully/for the paths oppose

Meteor Shower

14001400 views11 comment00 favs

A rain of stones . . .

Knell Quarternion

15631563 views11 comment00 favs

The Jester sat down on the edge of his mattress. He laboured to bring one gout ridden leg up to lay across the other. The jingle bell at the tip of his pointed toe mocked each serrated movement of his limb with a jaunty tinkle. He grabbed his ankle to arrest its…

I Am Wearing Stolen Socks

18261826 views11 comment00 favs

I am wearing stolen socks. Not because I haven't any of my own, and not because they are an exact fit. Only because they soothe my emptiness inside.

Going Along for the Ride

11151115 views11 comment11 fav

You could hear her coming from a long way off like she kept trying to catch her breath, like she was getting the fun rattled out of her bones. But it was laughter, always laughter that kept on filling up her belly from the inside and she was

DIVINE EROS

11431143 views11 comment11 fav

I drink the funeral in a dream. I give satisfaction in voice overs.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 4

928928 views11 comment11 fav

“So, vot you think?” Vladimir asked us. “You want to come see these paintings? This is once in lifetime chance. Not many left who know about these. And I know where they are.” All the while he kept looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdroppin

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 18

12131213 views11 comment11 fav

I went back to the Charles Bridge over the Vltava River and felt the plaque of the Wall of Gropers, and that was where we hatched our plan, in front of my ancestors. I could just feel their presence there. They would be with me, the Gropers of Prague.

The Treehouse

11641164 views11 comment11 fav

I noticed Sean changed after his grounding. We no longer played night soldiers around the block, no longer biked to the creek to catch crayfish he'd crush with his boots. Sean stopped hunting lizards, stopped charging smaller kids toll to pass…

My Darling Dead Ones

10041004 views11 comment11 fav

Do you remember?

Calm and Level

966966 views11 comment00 favs

The funeral grounds look level and calm. We leave the urban world behind for an instant. The other world has claimed someone. But we are in limbo. It is a terrible thing when a connection or breakthrough moment is not achieved or granted by the universe. …

Boss Gloss

4242 views11 comment11 fav

Short-short fiction

Record of a Living Being

17441744 views11 comment11 fav

Kurosawa was silent as we traipsed through the destruction, carefully side-stepping piles of sodden pages and heaps of swollen, broken-backed texts. Workers in coveralls used wide brooms to push water toward a floor-drain at the back of the store.

The Train

905905 views11 comment00 favs

On the train, with a bag full of books, All by the same person. That's what writing is. With each shudder bump my Head lags behind, and my eyes follow While the wandering shaky straight line Moves…

Sunflowers

14311431 views11 comment11 fav

On that balcony, on every other day, she practised her other, more worldly religion - gardening, specifically sunflowers.

Proud Mary

11371137 views11 comment00 favs

Mary had no shoes. She told me they were stolen by someone at the shelter and I believed her because she stood there outside the Arlington T stop in a pair of tube socks. She told me she wasn't asking for money. She told me the shelter was serving seafood today so her…

Custard and Blancmange

10271027 views11 comment11 fav

Who here of us has not yet caught Advanced to leaden fife, The answer to our waiting What, That answered, “Such is life?” I saw a jelly man go past, Who wobbled in his strife And cried, “No stiffness that won't last …

YOUR TONGUE

812812 views11 comment11 fav

I will try

Tangenital

15411541 views11 comment11 fav

I don’t personally know any models—let alone any supermodels—at this point in my life but some years back my father, who was working for the Woolite Corporation, was in charge of hiring models for them.

Shedding the Skin of Past Lives

11181118 views11 comment00 favs

I bow my head and shed the antlers of past lives I no longer butt heads with the universe but I miss my curse and can’t do worse I throw myself in reverse and rehearse the early scenes of science and my full meat diet that sent

Lotus-eaters

13421342 views11 comment11 fav

empty wine bottles, and a single abandoned boot

Editing Academic Papers at 2AM

12241224 views11 comment22 favs

To stop myself from imagining myself/ kissing you on your face, feeling your/ eyelashes on my lips as I pass over them,/ I imagine myself murdering you with/ an axe instead...