Most read stories

the symmetry of Aldo Rossi's handrails

19371937 views1414 comments99 favs

It would be another difference a building has from a “sculpture”. It would be something that even photographers would have difficulty in disguising, since many modern buildings, even many modern photographs of buildings, place such emphasis on symmetry. For both…

Beards

19371937 views33 comments22 favs

One day my mother's lover shaved his beard and legs. Said he couldn’t fit into his tight jeans anymore.

Dear Envelope Said the Stamp

19371937 views1212 comments77 favs

I have no more use for the beautiful words you used to like so much for me tosend you alone. See my feathers donot so much hide me now as giveme away; I tend to feel farfrom home. Forgive me this. Theend jumped by me quicker than anorange flower cricket on its…

The Dooleys

19361936 views22 comments22 favs

Mama told me never to play with the Dooley boys. They play too rough, they’re not to be trusted, and no one has seen Mrs. Dooley since she tried to clean out their tree house. Mama would always say, “You play with the Dooley Boys, you play with Satan.”

Quarters, Pasos, Arabians

19361936 views22 comments22 favs

Sometime that night I heard one; you get so you know when they’re coming in low down the valley or set up high over the coastals and I was sure about it.

How the Body Prepares Itself

19361936 views1818 comments1414 favs

it corrupts the smells// and flavors of the world/ and plants its swollen face

halloween haiku

19361936 views88 comments77 favs

a dry bony voice/from a desiccated soul/coughs up its own throat.

Lemony snickers on Route 66

19361936 views2020 comments1010 favs

Went back to his cab and returned with a whip...

Only a Memory Away

19361936 views1414 comments99 favs

When Uncle Dan got sent to the Alzheimer's ward, the ladies licked their lips. Fresh meat.

Mabel Constructed the Quintessential Boundary.

19361936 views2222 comments1010 favs

Mabel constructed the quintessential boundary. She carefully boiled down her pots and pans, her jewelry, her copper kettle, and the foils from forty six bottles of white pear cider into a silky metallic stew. Mable smeared the mixture onto a burlap…

Frostproof Suite: Saint John’s Eve

19361936 views1111 comments88 favs

Everyone at the Bermudez Brothers Combined Shows and Circus held one low opinion or another about Jimmy Dubcek.

Snake and Duck

19361936 views11 comment00 favs

Gloomy night slippery as snake and duck.

The Jewish Goodbye

19361936 views00 comments00 favs

"And secondly, it’s never bing bing bing with you. It’s like, bing bang bongity bumbity bum yadda yadda bla bla bla.” Sam stopped short and glanced down at his shoes. He knew he’d gone too far.

In Machu Picchu

19361936 views55 comments11 fav

"I wonder what happened to Murder Man and Lust Girl?" wondered The Black Toadstool. The Anti-Justice League were in Machu Picchu, on a short vacation after taking over most of South America and the South Pole. The South Pole had been so easy. …

John & Jackie

19351935 views00 comments00 favs

By the time I learned how much I loved my family, I was 3 years and eight-hundred miles away from them

The Killer

19351935 views88 comments44 favs

It don't knock you down to the goddamned ground and push your face into the mat and dare you to get back up. Just so it can knock you down again. They don't have real dreams. Dreams that make them wake up in the middle of the night. Hurting. Wanting.

Why They Cried: Roy

19351935 views22 comments11 fav

“Where did it go? You don’t know do you?” he teased the dogs as he adjusted the bottle rocket he had twisted into the ground at his feet, trying to find the optimal path.

Birth and Death of a Concrete Icon

19351935 views77 comments11 fav

Homer relaxes in his tan, faded recliner, remote in hand, and watches death unfold on his television.

Semi Tiresias

19351935 views1212 comments1111 favs

I knew my mother would die by the weekend

My Almost-Clash with The Rolling Stones (Memoir)

19351935 views44 comments22 favs

I'd been living in Boston, but, on a whim, flew to London, England. Soon I was working as support staff for the actor Alan Bates and his wife, Victoria, on a movie called "The Shout", shooting in Devon.

Her Side of the Story

19351935 views77 comments22 favs

I can't even tell you when it all started to come apart, but I do know that they're just nervous tics, responses to stress. We all go through it.The fact is I wouldn't even be bringing up any of this if it wasn't for the fact of the… incident… Shit, I know I wasn't…

Reading at the Anatomy Museum

19351935 views22 comments11 fav

If you know how, all bodies can be read like books, like poems, like scraps of song

Arcana Magi - c.27: Hard Battle

19341934 views00 comments00 favs

A burst of mud spilled out over Jonas and scooped his body up like a raging river. It spun his body over in a rebound rather than pushing him through the door.

All The Right Steps

19341934 views00 comments00 favs

"I didn’t take my mother’s denial of my dream lightly. I wanted it desperately. I cried and pleaded, nagged and begged. On several occasions, I temperamentally got out of the car at a stop sign and walked. Once, my mother said that I was nagging her so mu

My Tongue

19341934 views1111 comments55 favs

A nun once told me to watch my tongue. This is not an easy thing to do.

Half-and-Half

19341934 views22 comments11 fav

Terry worked in a factory out in Northlake where she added a little squirt of milk and another little squirt of cream to those tiny half-and-half coffee creamers you find at every motel in the country. The owner of that factory hired only women to work

Mayweather

19341934 views2020 comments1818 favs

where I'm from

Underwhelmed

19341934 views44 comments33 favs

fifteen together with a little streetart slamtrick

I've Been Here Before

19331933 views11 comment00 favs

I’ve been here before. it wasn’t you though— it was her before you, and then she before her … before you.

Courtroom (Philip Guston)

19331933 views66 comments33 favs

They’ve thrown the painter in the trash upside down with his red pajamas and feet sticking up in the air, with his shoes on. The large red hand of judgement pointing at him, that gives us direction and law and shame, gives us a large red headache. Whi