Most read stories

Major Chaos

19781978 views1717 comments66 favs

Major Chaos came here one of those hot days. I was washing the floor, wearing old clothes, when he knocked on my door. Since I don’t have many visits, I let him in. At first, he seemed like a soldier, but upon reflection I realized he was a big green fr

Fatuous Dialogue #1

19781978 views1818 comments1313 favs

—Was it true, what you wrote in that poem? —Pretty true. —What do you mean “pretty true”? Was it true or wasn’t it? —It was as close as you get to truth in poems.

Potsdamer Strasse

19771977 views33 comments33 favs

She stared unbreakingly, confident, knowing; and talked so close to my face I felt cornered. But her voice was something, low and smooth.

Child's Play Brings Back Memories of Busted Heads for Greying Protestor

19771977 views88 comments33 favs

"My boy Jake fell in with a bad crowd when he went to college," Coffelt says, shaking his head. "A bunch of accounting majors."

A Plea for Artists to Be Activists for Women’s Rights: Don’t Explain

19771977 views88 comments55 favs

When I feel the sort of longing that sneaks up on me unawares, the sort held for the wrong kind of person that can make a woman clutch her heart in the night and sullies her blood with unwanted dreams in a thinking person's landscape, I hear, too, the deep…

The Trench

19771977 views3838 comments1717 favs

His face was cold and hard as marble. Rudy’s angular features shuddered and twitched in the darkness.

Second verse, same as the first

19771977 views22 comments22 favs

Most people assume I’m gay, and have assumed I’m gay since I was in fifth grade. Maybe sooner. Maybe fifth grade is just my first memory of recognizing what other people believed true about me. But coming out as a gay man in 1987, when I was in fifth gra

Alice

19771977 views2323 comments1919 favs

Alice writes three different versions of the letter. The last one is the most tempered, the most like her, but still it is such an unlike-her thing to do. The couple who lives above her has been disrupting her sleep nearly every night for the past three weeks. The woman's…

Capture This Thing

19771977 views99 comments44 favs

Take it from inside you and draw it out. Do it before it decides you are not what you seem to be and, as a result, holds you up by the thumbs.

A Taste For Music

19761976 views22 comments00 favs

“Nothing we have here can stop them,” the Lumi said, “We were hoping there might be something in your world we might try.” “Even if we had something, how would I get it to you? ”We are working on that, in the meantime, will you help us?” I

The Caveman Attends the Symphony Without His Club

19761976 views88 comments33 favs

“Would you consider renewing for the next season?” “We’re not interested.” “Can I ask you why?” I considered my reply. I was thinking of mincing my words. The man on the other end of the line seemed, how should I put this, somewhat s

New Moon

19761976 views66 comments33 favs

circa the early 90s, Buzz Aldrin and my father had been invited to a dinner at someone's house on Bainbridge Island and gotten lost.

Like An Endless Rain

19761976 views22 comments11 fav

Fate could have sent me any number of Sergeant-Detectives, but fate sent me one of Boston’s finest, Sergeant-Detective Sheila Magnuson. Aside from being a little undernourished Sheila Magnuson is possibly the world’s most beautiful Sergeant-Detective.

Woman Gives Birth At Cafe, Refuses To Leave Until Latte Finished

19751975 views11 comment00 favs

There was a man crying, walking his dog and a woman drove by on a flat tire They brought coffee to the tables in large glasses on white saucers There’d be long silver spoons with which to stir in strong

Uterus

19751975 views1919 comments1111 favs

I describe mine as uterine-based hysteria or Sex Test.

The 2nd poem.

19751975 views00 comments00 favs

You came to me In the self made calm Causing quite a storm You want me to rejoice and relax? Not knowing my fears Shall we ever fly?

Witness

19751975 views1515 comments99 favs

The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.

All Fur and Bones

19751975 views00 comments11 fav

I wonder how much time she has left. I think she’s seventeen. I don’t know for sure because she was already grown when I got her from the pound, just before Christmas, years ago this was --back when I had hair and hope.

Resolutions

19751975 views33 comments33 favs

Portions of my heart and bones

Hometown News: The Ballad of Ray and Rose

19751975 views00 comments00 favs

There’s an old journalism adage, usually uttered by editors who haven’t had their butts out of a comfy leather newsroom chair in years, which goes: “You know… the news just doesn’t walk in the door.” ... But sometimes, it does.

True Fear

19751975 views44 comments22 favs

Flush, a sputter, and the water level rises, slowly. Flush again.

Three Photos

19741974 views33 comments00 favs

The first photo above shows plainly: five children dressed in suits and dresses. There are three girls. Each girl wears a yellow sundress with chiffon ribbons. The boys have been terrorizing them--the girls, not the dresses.

Bad Heart

19741974 views2020 comments1313 favs

You died from a bad heart.

Hat, Mouse, Tortoise, Zen

19741974 views1717 comments55 favs

I try to help my pet-mouse by dangling cheese from a piece of string in front of him. Or by making meow sounds. Sometimes, my pet-mouse wins, sometimes the hamster with the great body.

Lethargy

19741974 views55 comments22 favs

‘Your hands are very clean’ she said to the furniture salesman. His name was Morrison. "After Jim" Morrison Pentworthy. His father specialized in Doors.

Before the Fall (Pt. 2)

19741974 views33 comments11 fav

Newsome glared at the sleeping woman, slumped over the edge of the hard, metal table, her head settled comfortably into the crook of her arm. Over an hour she's been in that position, he thought. Despite the harshness of the room, the fluorescent lights,…

The Greatest Narcissist on Earth

19741974 views1818 comments1515 favs

I forgot how masterful you are, way better than a pickpocket. After our meeting, I drove home with one hand. It felt funny but I figured I'd absentmindedly put the other in my purse or tossed it into the backseat with my jacket. In my…

Saturday Night at the Yeti Fight

19741974 views33 comments00 favs

“What part of ‘only bettors can watch the Yeti fight’ do you not understand?!”, he yelled. “Either place a bet or get the hell out of here!” I begrudgingly gave him all of the money I had on me, about two hundred, and placed it on Demonio B

Book Killer

19741974 views1010 comments77 favs

Sometimes after bookbinding for a few hours at the hand-sewing table, Jillie would, after scraping her knife too roughly over the glue of an old book's spine, feel not like a resurrector of literature, as she should, but a killer. Not a calculating or

Take Your Gun to Work Day

19731973 views2929 comments1515 favs

In a rousing show of support for guns and the owners who love them, the Legislature passed and Governor Greg Abbott gleefully signed a law proclaiming April 15 as Take Your Gun to Work Day in Texas.