Most read stories

The Urine Pearls

19841984 views55 comments00 favs

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

Purple IV

19841984 views1313 comments77 favs

Purple not rain! I guess Prince left. It is said that Prince owned the aquifer under Jordan, Minnesota, and that he sold it but to whom? And moved to Canada—

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

19841984 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Small Change

19841984 views1414 comments1414 favs

Life seemed okay…for the most part.

Wrong Number

19841984 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

19841984 views77 comments22 favs

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

You are beautiful just the way you are

19841984 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.

Cut

19831983 views1515 comments88 favs

Effluvium is such a lovely word, so hey surprise it covers rancid butter, vomit, fertile gingko fruit trekked in from the pavement.

Magnum Opus

19831983 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

19831983 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.

Stumptown Mary

19831983 views22 comments11 fav

so one time the Holy Ghost come down to Stumptown

True Vocation

19831983 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 Whippy Guy

19831983 views11 comment00 favs

He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.

A Broken Ankle, Canasta, and a Weirdly Sexy Jesus Sighting

19831983 views1010 comments88 favs

nothing can stop a group of genteel Southern women from a card game, and divine intervention makes one's participation in such an event quite worthwhile

Golgotha

19831983 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.

Modulus of Elasticity

19831983 views1919 comments1515 favs

The limbs lift again,

Don't Be Difficult

19831983 views77 comments77 favs

maybe eventually time / will erase our time together

The Celebrity

19831983 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."

The Chicken In A Can Incident: A Cautionary Christmas Tale

19831983 views33 comments33 favs

Don't feed it to the dog, it has bones, it is a whole goddamn chicken in a can, and I can't stress that enough. Besides one year you gave me a toilet seat for Christmas. I couldn't even eat that Ky

The Violinist

19831983 views1313 comments1111 favs

Max leads the parade up the hill. He is sawing on his violin, wearing nothing but a raincoat.

I Like it This Way

19831983 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.

A Night Ride With the Conservative Poetry Enforcers

19821982 views00 comments00 favs

We've got our gang colors on because we're out for retribution. T.S. Eliot made an appearance at a writer's conference on De-Privileging the Dead White Male last night, and the head of a low-residency poetry program tossed hot green tea on him.

Worms Shouldn't Drink Whiskey

19821982 views66 comments55 favs

I have two memories of my dad. The first is a story he liked to tell: So my old woman came home one day with a worm. She sets the worm on the counter and goes into…

We Don't Need a Guitar Man

19821982 views55 comments22 favs

The courtroom smelled a lot like mold and it was hot as you could imagine. I sweated through my shirt and wondered if he wasn’t dying under his robe. He looked down at me from his bench and I just knew he was going to call me a commie and sentence me to l

The Ouija Board Guide to True Facts about Cremation

19821982 views00 comments00 favs

Oh, and take off all your jewelry unless you want your relatives sifting you through a window screen looking for your diamond.

The Madness of the Gods

19821982 views00 comments00 favs

“Have you heard about Lucius?” The lawyer turned to the carpenter. “They say he's gone mad. Just gone; the madness of the gods.” Sitting in the barbershop were the former two, one in his forties and the other of his fifties; a gray-haired…

Animals, Animals, Animals

19821982 views11 comment22 favs

  Crea grew up above a pet store and now she dreams of cats. There are too many of them to name, a slinking mess of calico, tabby, tortoise-shell, black and white. There are more each night. They whisper to her, words made of hissing mewls. During the…

Redeye Rabbit

19811981 views1414 comments77 favs

I knew it was just a matter of time...

A Team of Horses

19811981 views1717 comments1515 favs

He had coal black hair the day he died. He claimed to be part French, no doubt the offspring of a Swedish girl and a French soldier, although Ole did not mention this.

just like James Taylor

19801980 views1313 comments44 favs

tell me about the time you lived in Carolina, and what my smile does for you.