Most read stories

The Spider and the Corpse, Or, The Corpse and the Spider

18731873 views00 comments00 favs

The corpse lay silently in his open casket. Dressed in the finest silken suit. Italian. Rubber skin pulled over his bones. Arms folded in eternal prayer.

Universal Theory #1: The 3-Step Secret to a Good Life

18731873 views66 comments22 favs

1. Think up problems that don’t exist 2. Realize, suddenly, that they don’t exist 3. Elation

The Wish

18721872 views00 comments00 favs

Now coins used for wishing are not like coins used to purchase bread or carrots. Coins that have been invested with the magic of hopes and desires are special and have special properties. The difference between wishing coins and ordinary coins is very subtle.

Starspeak

18721872 views44 comments22 favs

So if we all have an idea what goes down when the young person at the cash register (the registerista?) asks, “Can I help you?” then we all know there’s a different way to habla at Seattle’s gift to the world.

How the Plum Fell, and Not Necessarily Why the Apple Flew

18721872 views1111 comments88 favs

A friend of mine is killing me With all of her lies. If I die tonight, you can bet it's Because of her. A friend of mine Is killing me with those lit eyes like Twin pyramids holding up her rambling Blue skyline. Look I don't have to …

Moles & Scraps

18721872 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…

New Questions of Travel

18721872 views2626 comments1818 favs

Watching water fall in the longest waterfall/ becomes immediately tedious

Jelly Doughnuts (from The New Yorker)

18721872 views44 comments33 favs

Simmi's only been in New York three weeks, but the second night she was here Buck took her to a coffee place he knew, and now Simmi makes sure he takes her there every night...

Hat, Mouse, Tortoise, Zen

18711871 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.

Rust

18711871 views66 comments44 favs

We lived in a white and mint green trailer in the woods. I was 23. The hanging of the clothes on the line made me feel kind of famous in the eyes of nature

Rock-a-Hoola

18711871 views1111 comments55 favs

She wears a green and pink bikini and walks real slow, poking her chest out so people will notice her.

Act of Creation

18711871 views22 comments11 fav

Mary ran her cake business in a way she could never have run her marriage. It was by appointment only, full deposit, partial refund (and this purely at her own discretion). Business was terrific and she had to turn down job after job. She only made…

The not so great Popsicle caper

18711871 views2222 comments88 favs

"Ha ha!" I said triumphantly, "I've got some left and you don't!"

Ghostriders and rainbows

18711871 views44 comments22 favs

Ghostriders in the syand rainbows in my mindor was itrainbow in the skyghostriders in my mind?I can't remember ...And apparently this body is not 200 characters long, so I add some text so this pearl too can be read (ahum) My body is only 170 characters long, snif,…

Sonnet Nought

18711871 views33 comments22 favs

Miraculous tarantulas, and octopii, have many limbs akimbo, Two have you: and they are better than be kept in zoo. Thine eyne are like the marbles that my youth had held in limbo, ‘Cept even better yet, for they are fairly lashed and greeny-blue. Your…

To Make Way for the Future

18701870 views55 comments11 fav

It was the shock of black hair twisted into a long thick braid that got our attention and made us want to find meaning here. Albert thought he recognized the hair in the grave.

April Haiku

18701870 views2020 comments1010 favs

A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

Some Kind of Change

18701870 views2626 comments66 favs

She was flying back in the morning, returning to a long-distance boyfriend I believed she had cheated on while she was here but didn’t ask about because I thought it would have been too obvious and somehow ungentlemanly.

Resolutions

18701870 views33 comments33 favs

Portions of my heart and bones

Gone With The Wildebeest

18691869 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…

How to Forget

18691869 views44 comments11 fav

Refuse to go to the church service, even though you already missed the funeral. Tell his mother something came up. Call his phone over and over, just to hear his voice, until his mother asks you to stop. Make a recording of his voicemail. Delete it an

I Scream

18691869 views1818 comments33 favs

she peeled back the white wrapper from around her ice cream sandwich slowly, methodically

WE NEVER

18691869 views00 comments00 favs

No news spreads faster than news of a death. Word of the death of a child can be heard simultaneously in a thousand places. . . the word spread by telephone, in back yards from clothesline to clothesline, with whispers in grocery stores, in the looks on faces stunned into…

Tribal Elder

18691869 views22 comments11 fav

"Look at this," she says while thumbing through the guide book, "look at what we can do on Jooga Booga island. Says here, 'Parasailing over the sapphire blue sea, one soars hundred of feet above water-skiers, boaters, and snorkelers, and the picture is b

Night Swim

18691869 views99 comments33 favs

She wrapped her legs around him. His hand barely held the rope and later he could not have said if it happened above or below the water’s surface.

My Wife, My Love

18691869 views2121 comments1818 favs

When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.

Preliminary

18691869 views1111 comments55 favs

After court, the three of us skipped third period, walked down to the river and huddled under the 6th Street Bridge.

The Silence of Harold

18691869 views1919 comments1111 favs

It's been sixteen days since I spoke with another soul. I don't mind much, but I know enough about people to know most would think I'm mighty odd. Muriel, for example. She'd be pissed as all get out. …

A Little Fishing

18691869 views1212 comments99 favs

Harpo sits and looks at something I can't see. I drink beer and ask him questions. I ask him how they found the cancer. Backache, he says. He went to see a doctor.

Food for Thought

18691869 views1313 comments1111 favs

I could never be a chef.Preparing creations that will merely be consumed.If I were a chef,I'd have to create dishes that required chewingand chewing and chewing.I'd find it better for my dishes to be destroyed in the mouth.Remembered for their…