Most read stories

Prairie Yields

18681868 views2222 comments1515 favs

The river’s not/ a river but/ a FEMA map/ of flooding probabilities.

Anchored Leaves

18681868 views1111 comments55 favs

i.More and more, for Megan LeMaster, each beginning was its own end. She couldn't bear to buy flowers or dresses that seemed too beautiful. Friendships formed, endured, gave out in a handshake. Each deed in life had an immediate, inescapable…

A Taste For Music

18671867 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

Jack's

18671867 views1818 comments1515 favs

We're not here for idle chit-chat, or ESPN, or fish tacos.

He Said, She Said

18671867 views2222 comments1616 favs

Maybe she would get married and have a baby, she said. Not with me, I said

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

18671867 views1212 comments99 favs

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

My Love For You Is Real

18671867 views00 comments00 favs

Caroline smiles before reaching out to touch a shapeless shadow dancing on the wall, closing her eyes as the bumps in the primer serve brail to oncoming dreams.

Martyr

18671867 views55 comments11 fav

The waitress says, “That’s a memory,” as the smoke dances around her head.

Goodbye, Brother

18671867 views99 comments88 favs

My brother died in his sleep almost two months ago. He was 25. He was addicted to pharmaceuticals. Two days before he died, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed his truck into a highway sign. It was the last thing he owned. He had been living with m

Before California Fell into the Sea

18671867 views22 comments11 fav

The trail wound through oak trees and climbed up a hill. The sun was high and hot whenever we came out from the cover of the trees. We stopped under a tree. “OK old man,” Leda said. She came to me and kissed me. Then she was unbuttoning my pants and kne

Songlines

18671867 views1313 comments1111 favs

When the planes crashed,when the levees broke,when the ground shook,there was a song I dreamed of,humming subsonic,a chorus of voices and prayersuncorked like the little brown jugthat holds all the love and memories.In the outback, Aborigines believewe create the world by…

Sack of Meat

18671867 views1515 comments33 favs

The Nurse left work at five o’clock, walking down Dekalb Avenue toward Flatbush. He didn’t frequent the bar closest to the hospital, although he guessed other nurses and doctors from Brooklyn Hospital did. But he liked to pretend that he cared about h

Fatuous Dialogue #1

18671867 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.

Squishy

18661866 views44 comments22 favs

Martin named it “Squishy” for two reasons. The first reason was because it was the noise it made when it came out of the hole in his basement. The second is because it’s what it did to Grandfather...

Letter to the Editor

18661866 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.

Last Poem

18661866 views2020 comments1818 favs

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

Life Story

18661866 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”…

Beckett not Joyce

18661866 views66 comments44 favs

Gorgonzola. It's what she was to bring this time. Plumtree's potted meat. What it was last time.

January 1980: Avenue A and St. Mark’s Place, East Village

18661866 views1616 comments1414 favs

In the St. Mark's Bar and Grill romance is a speedy thing, a blurred whir of grope, kiss, connect. The tricky thing is timing: to leave in time for the boozy love of the hour to carry through to full, naked contact. Some succeed of course. Others overstay, hang past the…

Regret

18661866 views22 comments22 favs

“Pupilo Durcál!” She yelled. “You stupid pendejo!” He limped along without another glance. Rosa suddenly realized her dreams all week were really omens.

Super Collider

18661866 views1010 comments22 favs

I never pulled it off, never rode an atom through a super collider with a nose full of cocaine and a drink in my hand. Never was a bullet, zooming through the city, skin pressed to bone, nerves on fire. Never was an atom bomb, ever-exploding in slow motion, ripping off…

Pollock's Last Snowflake?

18661866 views66 comments22 favs

The question posed a voluptuous riddle. Were these frenzied silhouettes gestures of Jackson Pollock’s dribble?

The Devil in Converse

18651865 views00 comments00 favs

In se'enties style serenading strut A passin all the pretty birds in kin', The feathered Stetson ‘clipsin crimson suit, A whistlin Dixie blues ‘cross county-lines.

i went to raves & wrote songs

18651865 views66 comments33 favs

A short poem.

Just like I read the news

18651865 views66 comments66 favs

She sang will you still need me

Second verse, same as the first

18651865 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

Kiss & make up

18651865 views33 comments22 favs

“You wanna fight.” And I say yes. And he says – “First, we gotta make out.”

The One

18651865 views00 comments00 favs

Jack thinks I should carry a loaded gun in my purse.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 10

18651865 views11 comment11 fav

I spent the whole day at Oliveira's, writing furiously in my notebooks. The words came pouring out. Just before seven, Darrell picked me up. I grew anxious driving down to Parker's studio because it was in a bad area on the border between Oakland

Forgive Me Mamma

18641864 views00 comments00 favs

His footing unsure and his clothes covered in vomit, he grabs the railing and stumbles up the three steps. He pulls off his shirt, finds a cleaner area on the puke-covered garment, wipes sweat off his forehead, dripping wet from the humid, stormy night, a