Most read stories

Will #17

20032003 views88 comments44 favs

I want crazy at my funeral. I want clowns, a petting zoo, fireworks, craps tables, male and female strippers, and a three-person band composed of old men wearing striped vests, black pants, and straw hats: one plays a banjo, another on tuba, and…

Elegy For the Old Republic

20032003 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.

True Fear

20032003 views44 comments22 favs

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

The Watchman

20022002 views1212 comments1010 favs

The coffins pile up gnawing dust on the glass panes to the rims of my binoculars. Shadowy cracks of stifling proportions, gliding over my eyes a requiem of mahogany. At dawn they heave between the workers’ hands, leave their resting places for a green tra

What's Wrong With Stella by Starlight?

20022002 views1111 comments33 favs

Suzie went on to become an anchorwoman in Los Angeles after college. She had tiny bruises on her feet where she’d shoot heroin since she didn’t want tracks to show on her arms, where they’d ruin the effect of a little black cocktail dress

Something Jazzy

20022002 views1414 comments1313 favs

. . . clinging to life in a shroud of winter air. It veered up five flights to a sweltering summer night on the roof . . .

Summertime

20022002 views1111 comments77 favs

I am so happy to see winter almost gone

Gone With The Wildebeest

20012001 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…

American Triptych

20012001 views1010 comments66 favs

It’s always fun and easy/ to punish the poor

Take-Home Quiz

20012001 views44 comments22 favs

1.) Please discuss any real-life problems you may have encountered having to do with the concept of “the look” or “the male gaze” as propounded in some of the feminist criticism readings we've done thus far this semester.

Book Killer

20012001 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

Europe, 1960

20012001 views2323 comments2222 favs

The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Moles & Scraps

20012001 views1717 comments1212 favs

A starved hunchbacked figure covered in blanket gently steers a one eyed dog along with him. A four legged shadow serving as his longtime companion against the all-consuming vacuum of the universe. A friend for all times.A thin scar runs from his cheekbone to…

Hat, Mouse, Tortoise, Zen

20002000 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.

The Crescent Caretaker

20002000 views22 comments11 fav

Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole where electric, shoeless uncles allocate their copper goulashes to catch white dripwater.

13 Halloweens

20002000 views22 comments22 favs

1. The Walking Heart Attack Man has two outfits. In the summer he dresses in a short sleeve checkered button down shirt and high waisted Bermuda shorts with sandals. In the winter he wears dark pants and loafers with a gray corduroy coat…

A Country of Husbands

19991999 views1010 comments77 favs

The first husband was young and lovely. He had a little nose and long fingers he used for things like planting begonias in my clay pot. I did not do flowers. So that was nice.

Not Lao-tzu's Magna Carta, xlvi - liv

19991999 views1212 comments99 favs

the Great Way itself is very smooth and straight,/but folks take to the challenge of rough, wild roads.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst

19991999 views77 comments44 favs

The things we do for books, she thought.

Alice

19991999 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…

Like An Endless Rain

19991999 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.

Greetings from 17-E

19981998 views00 comments00 favs

Remember the glass changing room just off the pool terrace? It's been replaced by a juice bar. Seems fitting, really.

Fat Man in a Blizzard

19981998 views1717 comments1515 favs

There he was. Minnesota Fats, short and pudgy, jowly and blond-haired.

Eighty-eight

19981998 views77 comments66 favs

She realised that things you can't prove can be more intimate than the things you know to be true.

El Gabacho

19981998 views00 comments00 favs

She turned to the window, staring into the dark. A smile crept to her lips and she laughed softly. “No, we can’t. I’m Mexican and we speak Spanish.” The smile vanished and she moved to leave. “No sé qué decir… sólo puedo llorar. Nada

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

19971997 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

Tumbalalaika

19971997 views66 comments44 favs

When the arguing started, their voices would get louder and louder, till they broke into my dreams. That night, I woke and listened in the dark for what felt like a very long time. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. For one thing, they never

Buoyancy

19971997 views22 comments11 fav

When I ate with my girls, Bliss and Victoria, I would lift my head up and look at us eating until I could imagine him chiding me. “Our daughters are looking more and more like you each day,” he’d say. “Fat!” I didn’t feel like eating when I thought abo

Uterus

19971997 views1919 comments1111 favs

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

Aerobics 6 p.m.

19971997 views33 comments11 fav

Dizzy but still alive Inside this conversation I ask if you have a sister And if she'll know me If I'm with you.