Most read stories

Trombones and Figs

19051905 views1717 comments1010 favs

“What are you doing, Maestro?"

Notes for a Life. In a Swing. No Wind to Speak of.

19051905 views1313 comments1515 favs

Somewhere a banjo, somewhere a hound.

Walking To Gibraltar, Chapter 6: In Which Moral Boundaries Are Set

19051905 views00 comments00 favs

The first time they were separated, he rediscovered music and writing.

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

19051905 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Novel excerpt: "Home Cure"

19051905 views55 comments00 favs

He picked up the bottle of gin, looked at it. "Not a lot left," he said. "There's enough," she replied. She took the bottle and lifted it to her lips. "Are you ready?" she asked. "For what?" "You'll see."

Thursday

19051905 views1717 comments1010 favs

Every Thursday, around 11 am, right after the cemetery where I work receives the daily shipment of cremated remains to be interred, a frail nonagenarian steps out of the driver's seat of his Lincoln Continental and walks, unassisted, up a flight of twenty granite steps,…

If I Was A Bum

19051905 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

Made in Japan

19041904 views1717 comments44 favs

It was in the spring of 1958 when I first arrived in Kobe, Japan, traveling aboard a Norwegian merchant ship, looking to make movies on a limited budget. Superior quality cameras, lenses, and film were being produced in Japan at a fraction of the cost for similar products…

Antigone Détente

19041904 views1717 comments1414 favs

Tan my hide. Feed me to rabid / macaques.

toupee

19041904 views11 comment00 favs

It wasn't until about 2:30 that my hairpiece began mauling small children.

Missing Letter

19041904 views1515 comments1010 favs

It's so far to get to where we aren't inthe way of someone's destructive progress.I'm only walking in my own gardensnow, but the big blue house is like an emptiedout envelope. I guess that makes this themissing letter. I don't know your heart's newaddress, but I once…

Parts 2 Through 5 of a piece called Wilderness of Humanity, or, We Can Always Clean This Thing Up Again

19031903 views77 comments66 favs

2. humility You know what silly does? Silly guarantees that you will enjoy the moment as the moment for the moment. Clowns make fun of silly. Isn't that ironic? They are in essence the opposite of their own image. That's why so many people see them as evil--because you…

Things I saw before and after I broke into my neighbour's apartment

19031903 views22 comments00 favs

Before Plasma screen TV Futon Underwear (brief style) piled on kitchen chair Unopened mail from funeral parlour Water in the sink coloured orange with grease Desktop computer (flying toasters screen saver) Cigarette butts floating…

The Days of Man

19031903 views00 comments11 fav

They drifted for months, locked between the vast merciless blue and the withering sun. Their faces blistered and their minds bleached and weary. They conspired in the shadows, drew plans in the sawdust, they grew confident and…

Just a Suggestion.

19031903 views44 comments33 favs

[testing ... one, two, three ... testing ... is this thing on? ... ok, here goes:]

Of Mugs and Men

19031903 views44 comments22 favs

I want to break that mug. (Break him.)

You are beautiful just the way you are

19031903 views66 comments66 favs

There were avocados splayed across menus like 1950′s pinup girls–all thigh and curve. Avocados in California omelets. Avocados split and diced, sprayed with lime, slapped on bagels, served with tomato.

A Journey of Seven Thousand Miles

19031903 views1111 comments99 favs

The taste of / what is denied us is always sweet

Girl Friends

19031903 views00 comments00 favs

Two women grab a table near a window in a coffee shop. Outside, the sky is the color of dulled aluminum. It is early spring and pollen assaults the air with a tint of sulfur.

Traum

19021902 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

Mt. Hood

19021902 views33 comments33 favs

To what better worlds remain.

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

19021902 views44 comments11 fav

Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…

Voronezh. Samara. Tyumen.

19021902 views88 comments55 favs

They have a saying in Russia: Live in Voronezh, work in Samara, die in Tyumen. In honour of Saint Rose, born on the banks of the Voronezh, fed the hungry and the poor of Samara, torn apart by wolves in Tyumen on the exact date that she had herself predict

Golgotha

19021902 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.

Faith

19021902 views44 comments22 favs

your leather jacket zip has left a row of teethmarks on her arm

I will be your girlfriend, Sam Pink

19021902 views11 comment00 favs

I don't really know, though. I've been locked in a beer cave for the last ten years of my life. I was just let out by some frat boys who were looking for Natty Light.

For Dejan S. & Bob V. & Gordy B.

19011901 views33 comments22 favs

Put blisters on your fingers and Put plasters on your head but Put peppers on your privates and You’ll wish that you were dead!

When the Witness Calls

19011901 views1515 comments1111 favs

Here they come, those witnesses.

Pterodactyls

19011901 views1111 comments88 favs

In his head he thinks oh whatever when I wake this time I shall have a very fine discussion with Someone special, oh but finding meaning in anything nowadays that's Just too much rich flattery, isn't it, filthy mirror? Inside His head's…

True Vocation

19011901 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