Most read stories

Do the Funky Penguin--With T.S. Eliot

17781778 views44 comments33 favs

True story: T.S. Eliot introduced Virginia Woolf to new dance steps including the Grizzly Bear and the Chicken Strut.

Noodles

17781778 views33 comments11 fav

It's Granny hauling her crooked soul into heaven. Guess who I stole that image from?

The Galleries

17781778 views2020 comments1111 favs

We invent our beauties// as we find them and engineer/ our horrors

Testament (complete)

17781778 views1616 comments1313 favs

Their nouns are few and stark./ Ours are numerous and dappled/ or subtly shaded and shadowed/ by circumstance and possibility.

Crackle

17781778 views88 comments66 favs

As he brushes his shoulders against other people's shoulders until he almost has no shoulders –

Pharaoh

17781778 views1111 comments66 favs

Altodog was dressed in filthy chef’s trousers and a long-sleeved purple dress shirt, somewhat dignified by a tattered black vest.

To See Who's There

17771777 views1616 comments1616 favs

To See Who's There Able these days to search through centuries, I click, scribble, cut and paste, skim, reject, record, resurrect a wet stone wall, the smell of burning peat. Bob's your uncle, Peggy's …

Daddy, Can I Have A Puppy?

17771777 views44 comments11 fav

Dad must have walked around with me 20 times, the store closed around us and finally he said I could have one. They were all in different poses and sizes, with black spots. Except one. One had silver spots.

Snake Walk

17771777 views1717 comments66 favs

The Viper turns so quickly that Father's grabbing hand now faces its head instead of its tail.

I used to think the sun was the moon

17771777 views55 comments22 favs

I imagined the sun to be the moon and discovered it was not on a road trip in California where I noticed the sun on one side and the moon on the other.

Building

17771777 views66 comments22 favs

he told me to be careful,my feet may bleedI watched him walk up and down the path,occasionally bendingwhy?carpenter nails, pieces of broken shinglesall along the pathnow I know why

Confessions of a Politician

17771777 views22 comments11 fav

Forgive me father for I have sinned.” “Tell me how you have sinned, my son?” Lies, father. I have told lie after lie in pursuit of my personal gain. I have lied to my family, my friends, to thousands of people who desired nothing from me but the tr

Water, Water Everywhere

17771777 views1212 comments1010 favs

Later I asked Mark if he wanted to watch, but his wife wouldn’t let him. She didn’t like kinky stuff, she said.

Internet Hole (an excerpt from Psychopomp)

17771777 views11 comment11 fav

Seventeen-year cicadas are the sometimes-singers that surprise spring with the ugliest mouths of all.

The Red Suitcase: (Conclusion)

17771777 views77 comments55 favs

—You must be joking, he laughed.

Verboten

17771777 views77 comments11 fav

Scales were installed on station platforms. Those who were overweight were turned away

Storage Access Framework

17771777 views33 comments33 favs

At first we thought metadata rich, non-hierarchical, network based, multi-provider filesystems were our future. An arduous journey but well worth the efforts for the beforehand unimaginable user experiences enabled by new technologies that thereupon displaced the…

Some People

17771777 views1212 comments77 favs

But those burning red numbers persist in my mind and I can't rest 'till they're gone They always come back Like the cat in that childhood song.

A Little Bit of Syrup

17761776 views55 comments33 favs

"I made up my mind then, in the backseat, sucking on a cherry Popsicle, that I wanted to be like Ruby’s mother..."

The Cicada's Cry

17761776 views11 comment22 favs

In the cicada's cry No sign can foretell How soon it must dieBasho "Hear the locusts?" The woman lifts the child's head. "Hear em, baby?" The child looks blankly in the…

When I Was Young In the Suburbs

17761776 views22 comments22 favs

When I was young in the suburbs, there was an empty lot across from our house. Bulldozers cleared the trees, shredded the bushes, and piled mounds of dirt three times as tall as I. But they never built a house.The dirt mounds, chain-link fences, and neon signs were…

Beamers

17761776 views22 comments00 favs

I try again. "You can make a big cup by putting your hands and fingers together, see?" He glares at me. "A giant could make a big cup," he says. "A giant could make a giant cup." I thought so before, and I’ll say it again. A little genius.

Space, Blank, Uninterrupted

17761776 views77 comments11 fav

Space, blank, uninterrupted, but then a fissure, a crack, a corridor, and down it you're walking.

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #78

17761776 views33 comments22 favs

A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.

Please Take

17761776 views44 comments44 favs

I have a ball-pein hammer in my coat pocket.

Ibby's Falafel

17761776 views33 comments11 fav

Dark hung over the night like an occupation force. Across the street a Cuban diner fought it off with green and yellow neon lights, Latin rhythm beating through the air.

Amy-Loyd Plax

17761776 views1212 comments1111 favs

When I no longer know you, what signal will you give to remind me that you and I once loved?

Cream Base Neutral Tan

17751775 views22 comments11 fav

Face defined-front part of head Cybil's eyes stick to a mirror and guard the woman's skin. The woman's image could be the result of uncontrolled narcissism, yet dry wrinkles are visible from her reflection. Disguise cream covers some of the woman's c

Smart Bar

17751775 views33 comments11 fav

Everything is painted black that isn’t glass, velvet, neon, or chrome. The club is cold, and the DJ who broke-up with me while I forgot I was stoned is spinning his favorites to an empty floor. Endings have a rhythm. I heard this one coming. I can hear it

The Rhythm of the Cows

17751775 views77 comments44 favs

A cow wanders onto a roof and falls through the skylight. It's a calamity, but such an innocent mistake. Mightn't you amble onto a rooftop once upon a full winter snow in Vermont?Another cow climbs a gravel mound in…