Most read stories

Wild Dreams of Reality, 10

19641964 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

Napomo 17: April 7-12

19641964 views2222 comments1212 favs

The drinking will continue/ until morale improves

Poleward

19641964 views99 comments33 favs

We hit the road, headed west.

A Silent Scream

19641964 views22 comments22 favs

She hated the noiseless dying sound they made as he stuck the hook through their eyes. She always wanted for them to scream, but they never did. They didn’t even blink.

A Little Fishing

19641964 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.

Trio of Found Poems

19631963 views22 comments11 fav

Paper Bird, Devotchka, TV On The Radio

You're A Bad Dad: The Story Of Juniper Mélange

19631963 views77 comments44 favs

Juniper Mélange was a cat person, not a dog person. Truly detested when she perceived falseness in another person. She wore glasses and drank tea. Had dark straight hair and light skin. She dressed conservatively and would watch the sky most days. She wou

The Clod and the Pebble

19631963 views1212 comments99 favs

“Lightning has more longevity than I,”

Bubble Gum and Paperback Books

19631963 views1010 comments1010 favs

A block after his first crime, he found a bookstore to commit another.

When the Songbirds Went Silent in Cheerytown

19631963 views1010 comments44 favs

What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?

Existential

19631963 views3333 comments1515 favs

To envy faith, to envy love --// is there a fate more hateful? Choices/ scatter like stars. Too many.

So Different Now

19631963 views22 comments00 favs

She’s right there in Thirsty’s. In her usual spot. Drinking her usual drink. Yuengling on tap. One after another. And he’s there too. Behind the bar. Pouring drinks. One after another. Sometimes they speak. But mostly she orders. He pours. And

Mutants

19631963 views11 comment00 favs

Elin and I had religious differences about the garage. To her the garage required regular sweeping and organization--it was an extension of our house. Elin believed dust and mold to be manifestations of inner sin. I insisted that they were agents of evolu

Polaris

19621962 views1010 comments77 favs

Things get lost in Big John, too. I see the other guys throw jokes about his size at his body that wedge their way into his armpits or into the wrinkles of his laugh lines and disappear. I’m not sure if it all disappears to remind us how small we are,

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

19621962 views1010 comments66 favs

—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

Redacted.

19621962 views11 comment00 favs

Almost on cue, Xavier emerges and is in the vendor’s face. “X,” as he is known around here, is indoctrinating the obvious newbie on the merits of showing up earlier and the logistics of placeholders and markers.

Letter to the Bean Factory

19621962 views66 comments22 favs

The figure was covered in a light blue chenille bathrobe, splayed out on her back on the floor by the glass door, her hair done up in large curlers, a slipper lying askew by her left foot. Richie crouched near the face and the rancid flame of bourbon lea

Fall

19611961 views11 comment00 favs

The rustling of the dry leaves when he moved even slightly sounded like thunder to him, and he was sure if any of the other kids from the neighborhood got too close, it was the noise that would end up giving him away.

Tuesday Night

19611961 views44 comments11 fav

She comes in with her white bag with its floral patterns scattered, almost accidentally, all around it

Where Have You Gone, Honey Bear?

19611961 views66 comments66 favs

When I wake up and look to my left, will you be there with me, snoring like an asthmatic bear?

Scent of a Woman - 55 word story

19611961 views1313 comments55 favs

She slipped into a silky sheath dress, and stepped into black sequined heels just as the doorbell rang. Her date had arrived to take her to his much touted Art opening in town. Reaching under the bathroom sink for a final mist of hair spray she realized too late…

Under Water

19611961 views11 comment11 fav

When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.

Robert Penn Warren and Orange County Blue

19611961 views88 comments55 favs

We were old. Wind came in with small threats and played games with drapes. A print of orchids and some other green affair that looked to me like kiwis. Sadie was arranging some items on a desk and I noticed there was a cricket on the window. I was thinking…

The Art of It

19611961 views44 comments22 favs

To write a good poem, one needs nothing but the whole intent of goodness.

Something for you

19601960 views66 comments11 fav

Bearing the smell of paper on her fingertips. Ink in her hair.

Kin of His

19601960 views3030 comments1818 favs

I dreamed that coffee grounds had spilled on my Buffet. There was another clarinet, a silver one, that belonged to a man not in the room, that was clean of debris.

Her Dream Princes

19601960 views1010 comments44 favs

They live a simple life..two solitudes by lamplight.

Quiet (from Grand Street literary journal)

19601960 views22 comments22 favs

I know it’s nobody’s fault, and that one thing had nothing to do with the other, because it was this way for me since I was born; they just didn’t figure it out for a while that with one of my ears I could hardly hear, and with the other, I couldn

Avatar Of Chaos

19591959 views55 comments55 favs

He has one good eye and is missing the other. The socket of his missing eye squints with a disturbing and unfathomable insight.

Jumping Beans

19591959 views11 comment11 fav

The red laser flashes. He asks if I have an Ace Rewards card. I can't even answer because my beans have stopped jumping. I wonder if the laser light harmed them. Then one jumps and another, and I hand the boy some money, suddenly very fond of my beans.