Most read stories

Borden, Dream on Lord of the Pies.

19791979 views22 comments11 fav

A plague of dykes mattered not. This spider-girl had driven the world of thought from Borden’s mind.

The Urine Pearls

19791979 views55 comments00 favs

“No, dad, I've never seen urine colored pearls.”

lament of Liu Ch'e . . . while elsewhere--

19791979 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

I've Got a Secret

19791979 views1818 comments1212 favs

There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.

Golgotha

19791979 views22 comments00 favs

They were starting to get winded. The boy, his father and his little brother were hiking up a hill, cutting a diagonal path through hay-colored grass towards an outcrop of craggy boulders below the hill's summit.

Bravo, Scrittore!

19791979 views44 comments00 favs

I hadn't yet assembled enough pieces of Italian to explain any of this, but it was hardly necessary. The fact that I was a scrittore in a language foreign to her seemed to make me especially fascinating...

If I Was A Bum

19791979 views33 comments00 favs

If I was a bum I’d risk everything for a drink or a smoke I would beg and curse and steal if I was a bum If I was a bum I would cuss out the Pope I would not vote for anyone because I would know truly they’d be telling gross lies

The Road Trip Trilogy

19791979 views00 comments00 favs

...It's my advice that this Fourth of July the Office of Homeland Security post the following instructions on your web site www.Ready.gov — people should act like my dog Lucy and just stay inside under the bed and tremble...

Why They Cried: Deano

19781978 views33 comments11 fav

When it came time to sell the agency—when the papers came for him to sign—it was a very bad deal. But he did not cry. This was business. He had gambled and he had lost. He signed the papers without a hint of regret and even pried open a case of champa

When I'm Not Here

19781978 views22 comments00 favs

She’ll get a dog a Weimaraner I know She’ll call him Alfie after her first two dogs He’ll try to get up on the bed She’ll say, Alfie, no, no But in the night she will let him so as not to be lonely

five discards or less

19781978 views66 comments55 favs

weep or go stark mad your amanuensic fool will bury your words

The Tree

19781978 views1212 comments88 favs

No fuckin' way, Maude. Excuse me, but you know I can't stand that bag of wind. No way.

Migratory Mistakes

19781978 views00 comments00 favs

Unadorned tragedies pinpoint the worst angles of the road; simple crosses or bouquets line boulders painted with car crash smoke or skid marks that tiptoe to the edge of cliffs and then, apparently, leap.

Riddle 44 from the Exeter Book: The Key

19781978 views11 comment22 favs

Curiously made thing

Traum

19771977 views1010 comments55 favs

Over our short, yet enduring relationship, I found that he was desperately trying to reconcile his ambitions with his situation. I left and he continued to be unhappy, trying to "fix" what he now realized had been broken all along. In the end, a span of a

A Chaos Theory

19771977 views00 comments00 favs

—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

Magnum Opus

19771977 views44 comments33 favs

The scaffolding had been difficult to construct. The rock floor of the bluff offered no purchase, so he'd been forced to anchor braces to the trees behind, then span some thirty feet. A cantilevered gallows reached another fifteen feet past the stage...

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19771977 views22 comments11 fav

My name is Lu-chen Wyatt, and I have watched this tomb for seven years with undying loyalty. Tomorrow I am going away, and I wish to set down the story of my leaving and to say goodbye to Set-Yi, whose burial place has been my home for so long.

Wrong Number

19771977 views77 comments33 favs

The package arrived, delivered to her work as was her preference. She took it to the ladies room and sat on the lounge, carefully opening the box, removing the new black patent leather FMQs, pulling out the tissue paper stuffed into the toes and placing her well-worn…

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19771977 views77 comments22 favs

French pee runs stronger, less minty. In France the world' a pissoir.

The Celebrity

19771977 views99 comments66 favs

"He doesn't have a parish," I said. "He works in a hospital in the East Bay. He told me that if I were in that hospital and I woke up and saw him, I was in big trouble."

I Like it This Way

19771977 views1717 comments77 favs

Through its branches we saw a couple. Teenagers, narrow and pale, two young birch trees, their roots twisted, submerged in the water.

The Sky-What Limit?

19771977 views00 comments00 favs

Lighter-than-air flight was back. The skies of the coast were alight with colorful balloons, dirigibles, and zeppelins tethered to their docking towers along the beach, the huge aircraft bobbing in the breeze up and down the coast for miles,…

Quiet

19761976 views1414 comments1212 favs

He says, You think too much and he grins a grin that has all of the attic keys on a wrought iron ring, on a chain.

Letters from the Asylum (3)

19761976 views22 comments11 fav

She stepped into a pair of high heeled slippers and began to dance. She was Salome, a witch, dancing like the most beautiful, the most skilled whores of Paris.

Small Change

19761976 views1414 comments1414 favs

Life seemed okay…for the most part.

True Vocation

19761976 views11 comment11 fav

After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

The Little Dog from Outer Space

19761976 views1111 comments88 favs

I looked at her, shook my head and tried to smile. She smiled back, beaming a radiance that pushed away the chill.

Goodnight, Travel Well

19761976 views44 comments33 favs

An excerpt.

Dick Be Gone

19761976 views33 comments22 favs

One thing about being a musician—more specifically a drummer—struggling against the cost of living—more specifically the cost of living in the Bay Area—is that I will do just about anything to earn money.