Most read stories

Summer Reading

19961996 views55 comments33 favs

The summer everyone read Faulkner, I read Hemingway. Out of spite.

Night Swim

19961996 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.

A Time for Peace

19961996 views1313 comments1111 favs

When she opens the door, I say hi and introduce her to my friend, a bottle of J.T.S. Brown. She laughs and tells me to come on in before I fall down.

Doctor, My Eyes

19961996 views33 comments00 favs

...it was just my heart stnging through my eyes...

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

19961996 views55 comments11 fav

The light against the nylon walls of the tent gets me feeling a little down. The air's wet inside, but it's warm. The whole world outside is creaking and chirping, everything that wakes up with the dawn's first tepid blue light does so and starts making n

Light Shot Water

19951995 views99 comments44 favs

Where I grew up, you did not venture casually into ocean waters.

The Mitzvah

19951995 views1717 comments1111 favs

There were only two students in the sculpture class: an 86 year-old Jewish woman and myself.

Mystery by the Bay

19951995 views00 comments00 favs

The water was like glass except for a ripple here and there where Spearing were jumping. Joe didn’t know whether they were playing or avoiding being lunch for larger fish. He set up shop above the point where, light years ago, his father, a fisherman, had

They Would Judge His Trespasses

19951995 views77 comments22 favs

They waited until the crowd was gone before making their move. Gill kept watch while Warren bypassed the lock. “You sure about this?” Gill whispered. Voices echoed down the hall of the museum.

Why the Woodpecker Laughs

19951995 views88 comments77 favs

Once upon a time, before there was Prairie, there was Swamp. Therein lived Salamander and Snake. High above them, in the tops of Cypresses lived Woodpecker.

Impromptu Retranscriptions from the 'Song of Songs' (erotic poetry - explicit language)

19951995 views44 comments33 favs

I. When my lips mouth yours where they are…

Berthier Door

19951995 views44 comments33 favs

On Day 1122 at 4:14 AM the door which has remained since installation firmly glued to the masonry behind opens and a man emerges blinking shielding his eyes against fine stinging snow.

Arcana Magi - c.21: The World Stage

19951995 views00 comments00 favs

The old mage said nothing. She did not even return the complement. All she had was disgust in her eyes as she looked at the grown men and women. To her they had no hearts.

Awaken Sleepy Star

19951995 views88 comments77 favs

Don't sleep. Tiny orange Balloons like seahorses are bobbing This way and that trying To get your hair to lift Off its marvelously mud- Swamped and pillowy support beams, blue sea strand by green. Don't you want to see…

Middle Age

19951995 views1818 comments1414 favs

There are no city-chewed streets,/ only white and lilac blooming dogwood trees.

Welcome to our community

19941994 views00 comments00 favs

“Yeah, she's a real slut,” many contestants' mothers say. “If he could only keep it in his pants, he'd probably be able to stay in the country,” others say about their sons

The Caveman Attends the Symphony Without His Club

19941994 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

Life Story

19941994 views99 comments77 favs

A man lives with a woman he loves enough to live with, but not enough to marry and not enough for kids. He knows he could love others enough to marry, enough for kids, but he's not the kind of man to find those women when he's with this woman.Sometimes “love”…

Some Kind of Change

19941994 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.

How I Made My Fortune

19941994 views00 comments00 favs

At the time I first went to work for Mr. Byron my family was in a sorrowful state. My dad, much as I can recall, was one of those roving kinds, called himself a carpenter or contractor, depending on the kind of job he was aspiring to, and was subject to f

Leox

19941994 views66 comments22 favs

Whoever came up with the term kismet is an absolute moron. There isn't a single reason, or word, that can describe what exactly my brain has concocted in the face of him. No, kismet isn't what makes it happen. It's my own stupidity..

Ibambe

19941994 views1616 comments1313 favs

If this was the day when the bribes of whiskey and US dollars would fail to work. If on this day a black bag, smelling of shit and fear, would be pulled over his head – the bloodied roots of a knocked out tooth tickling his neck.

Better Days

19931993 views66 comments55 favs

I peeled off a hundred. For the screwdriver, I said. The kid shook his head, made a pushing-away gesture. You need it worse’n I do right now, he said.

Last Poem

19931993 views2020 comments1818 favs

or the voice that wants/ to be inscribed/ forgets the sounds

WE NEVER

19931993 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…

The Bird King in Love

19931993 views99 comments77 favs

1The Bird King has fallen in lovewith a radiator.He adoresher pockmarked skin,her neurotic arias,her coldness,her impulsive warmth. 2Tiring of his dalliance with the radiator,the Bird King woos an armchair.She's amply upholsteredand groans dreamilywhen he sits on…

Just like I read the news

19931993 views66 comments66 favs

She sang will you still need me

A Walk

19931993 views77 comments33 favs

I suppose the lazy trees would have a thing or two to say about love

tears, et cetera

19931993 views66 comments66 favs

ghosts are local plagues/of unexpended grief—tears/can't be bodiless.

Death Masking Love

19931993 views44 comments33 favs

She brought the ends of her fingers to her mouth and moistened them in her warm saliva. The whorls of her prints glistened in the harsh light of the room, but it wasn't her own outlines she was interested in raising. His hand lay outstretched in his…