Most read stories

Capture This Thing

19811981 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.

Fatuous Dialogue #1

19811981 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.

True Fear

19811981 views44 comments22 favs

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

A Taste For Music

19801980 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

Potsdamer Strasse

19801980 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.

Blink

19801980 views44 comments22 favs

He stands straighter and walks toward the phone in the back, near the bathrooms. His wet sock slaps loudly against the tile floor. The buzz of conversation dims to whispers, barely audible above the roar of the espresso machine.

The Trench

19801980 views3838 comments1717 favs

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

Mother Died Tomorrow

19801980 views1919 comments1313 favs

memories that no longer make sense

Hometown News: The Ballad of Ray and Rose

19801980 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.

Heart vs. Head

19791979 views00 comments00 favs

Where was it? Tino wondered, craning his neck, plastic bag in hand. He would have sworn there was a Barnes & Noble along this stretch. Had it closed since his mother had last been in the hospital two years ago?

Witness

19791979 views1515 comments99 favs

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

Alice

19791979 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…

New Questions of Travel

19791979 views2626 comments1818 favs

Watching water fall in the longest waterfall/ becomes immediately tedious

Letter to the Editor

19781978 views1212 comments99 favs

Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.

New Moon

19781978 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

19781978 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.

Gone With The Wildebeest

19771977 views22 comments11 fav

A recent book reveals that nature documentaries are staged. Shocked by such claims we went on location to discover for ourselves the behind-the-scenes manipulations and more. Director: “You'll spot the wildebeest, freeze, and then charge. Okay? And try to bring…

Bad Heart

19771977 views2020 comments1313 favs

You died from a bad heart.

The Caveman Attends the Symphony Without His Club

19771977 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

Uterus

19771977 views1919 comments1111 favs

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

Before the Fall (Pt. 2)

19771977 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,…

All Fur and Bones

19771977 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.

Book Killer

19771977 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

Resolutions

19771977 views33 comments33 favs

Portions of my heart and bones

February Fifth

19771977 views44 comments22 favs

We've worked silence over / Like pros, our best work together.

Elegy For the Old Republic

19771977 views33 comments22 favs

You call the shit in this paper news? ‘Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform, The Truth About Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter.' Seriously? Enough about Elvis already.

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

19761976 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

Three Photos

19761976 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.

Hat, Mouse, Tortoise, Zen

19761976 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.

Self-Portrait of Someone Else (excerpt)

19761976 views77 comments33 favs

Recently I think I became someone else. When the alarm clock rings in the morning, it sounds sharper than usual; getting up, my feet don't seem to quite touch the floor; looking into my bathroom mirror, my face seems to be melting, sliding, my eyes dri