Most read stories

This Train Is Bound For Paoli: A Multiple Choice Essay

17621762 views55 comments55 favs

Train 664 leaves Thirtieth Street Station bound for New York City at 10:55. Concurrently, Train 663 leaves the station, headed for Harrisburg. Both trains are, confusingly, called The Keystone.If Mark and I have tickets for Train 664 because we plan to…

A Little Bit of Syrup

17621762 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..."

Building

17621762 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

Vivian

17621762 views1111 comments1010 favs

When her husband left she was not yet thirty

The Rhythm of the Cows

17621762 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…

Play Pen

17621762 views22 comments00 favs

we're only playing with this language you and I

Faith, Hope, and Charity

17621762 views1515 comments1212 favs

She wears three or four tattered sweaters on cool days. She pushes a basket borrowed from a grocery store. There is a plastic lawn bag in the basket with God knows what inside.

Spill

17621762 views1414 comments1111 favs

The beachy slope never draws such goliaths.

Storage Access Framework

17621762 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…

Testament (complete)

17621762 views1616 comments1313 favs

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

To See Who's There

17611761 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 …

The Eagle and Her Chicks

17611761 views11 comment00 favs

On the day they were born, the old mother eagle named her chicks Faith, Hope, and Charity.

To Know but not Really

17611761 views99 comments55 favs

So strange this feelingTo meet someone I've haven't really metTo know someone I don't actually knowTo desire to learn more but sure I never willTo feel connected not knowing what I'm connected toTo read words, thoughts, feel moved by them, but never hear a voice

Plant Me

17611761 views1212 comments99 favs

If you find the place they forgot to bomb send me a hot pink postcard. The planet is only so big. We're already dipping our heels into the waters without wanting to become true believers, miserable followers. The bedtime stories will have to…

Today's Going fast

17611761 views1313 comments1212 favs

screw everything, youth is plinko

The Cicada's Cry

17611761 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…

The Little Things (three versions)

17611761 views1616 comments1212 favs

It's the little things that trip us up: a small hole in a level field, an innocuous root in a well-trod path, a disinclined sidewalk...

Happy Valentine's Day From Your Librarian

17611761 views66 comments55 favs

Is every librarian a poet at heart? I don't know, but a group of librarians recently put their heads together and came up with these library-themed Valentine's Day poems: Roses are red Your book's overdue You've had it for months Which is…

Wayne Recalls Rocking and the Power of Positive Thinking

17611761 views11 comment11 fav

My mother told me I came out of her screaming and didn’t stop for two years. After that I took up rocking.

Cream Base Neutral Tan

17601760 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

Snake Walk

17601760 views1717 comments66 favs

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

Let’s do something with this

17601760 views00 comments00 favs

No way was Robert actually surprised that hewas competitive with himself, but there was something way more concrete about this. Instead of hand wringing, there was someone, Bob, that he could punch.

Good Home Wanted

17601760 views66 comments33 favs

In his fridge he had one piece of meat. He hadn’t been expecting me. I cooked it for him and watched him eat.

Three Degrees of Separation from the Same Thing We Were Still Supposed to be Thinking About

17601760 views33 comments22 favs

It was hard to believe that, even very recently, there had been first days of school where nothing happened.

El Desdichado by Nerval

17601760 views99 comments77 favs

Give me back my / singularity, my tristesse, my photo ID.

PTSD

17601760 views22 comments22 favs

My therapist told me I have post traumatic stress disorder My uncle had that He fought in the war I guess I fought in my own kind Not between countries Between children and father Between husband and wife Between addiction and sobriety When my father got…

Young Turks

17601760 views00 comments00 favs

There was a whole group of us Young Turk poets who hung out at the Savoy Tivoli in North Beach. Most of them drove cabs, (whereas I was now working in a damned gas station for Angel, my publisher’s man, who got me a job there.) They would double-park thei

Drift

17601760 views1414 comments77 favs

Dreams & foghorns.

The Man Who Couldn't Move

17601760 views88 comments55 favs

Without warning his eyes expertly navigated into a closed position setting off the dream machine long without power until this very second.

Admit Nothing

17601760 views77 comments55 favs

Traveling in half-lit fluorescence, she smiles up at me, pale and strained