Most read stories

Why We Were Arrested

17601760 views22 comments22 favs

We have a responsibility,” she says, “to enrich our local business community while delivering quality products to customers.” She had brought over some application forms for the Better Business Bureau, and we sit at the big table and fill them out, marki

f**k xmas

17601760 views22 comments22 favs

Christmas Eve arrives with a relief that the season of joy will soon be over so I can feel the pain I am denying myself. Rosie presses her face against the kitchen window, leaving ghostlike impressions of the tip of her nose and her lips on the glass tha

Par Delicatesse

17601760 views55 comments22 favs

I know what he meant. I've been in the 3 A.M. cream cheese. I've known the hole in the bagel.

Questions Dog First Pooch's Kennel Papers

17601760 views11 comment11 fav

The White House released only a short-form pedigree certificate, which “breeders” claim bears signs of alteration. “The ‘K’ in the middle of ‘AKC’ is longer than the other letters, like an El Greco on an acid trip.”

Tangerine Slip Cat

17601760 views88 comments66 favs

I knew my cat was capable of telepathy when I began to have isolated, random, non-cause-related thoughts about food and feelings, little signals, and I realized that the signs — images of tangerines, tuna, bones; the idea of choice; slate, names; the feeling of…

Because words are insufficient

17601760 views99 comments77 favs

The day you came to the wedding the sky was so, so brightly July./ I saw my face where I left it the last time . . . .

A Body Divided, 3

17601760 views00 comments00 favs

A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

SHADOW

17601760 views22 comments00 favs

I am a shadow. Cooler than liquid. I don't need a container to take shape.

Another "Accidental" Tryst

17591759 views1111 comments77 favs

She smacked his back a couple of times with the flat of her hand

In the Alley

17591759 views1212 comments77 favs

as i sink down into the shadows crawling like a worm past cold bricks centuries old in my blood

A Brief History of The Real

17591759 views99 comments55 favs

A little contempuous aside by the critical theorist guy, Frederick Jameson-- that it was logically absurd to call anything that human beings do, produce or effect “unnatural,”-- has brought forth the following. We are…

Why No One Writes Epics Anymore

17591759 views66 comments66 favs

No one writes epics anymore. Why? Perhaps it's because we no longer share mythologies. Once there was a shepherd, and now there is a Google bus loaded with pricks. Yes, you say, but they are good at math. Each and every one of them. And this is true. I envy them…

I'm No Chickenshit

17591759 views00 comments00 favs

Would a chickenshit leave her like I did yesterday?

30x30

17591759 views00 comments00 favs

30 poems in 30 days

I Wish I Could Say This to Your Face

17581758 views1818 comments55 favs

The day you came home, after three extended tours in Afghanistan, I wanted to welcome you at the bus station, but I was afraid you'd attach yourself to me again.

Thanks for Looking After Sinamyn

17581758 views1313 comments44 favs

Here are a few tips/instructions to help you out (though I'm sure you'll do just fine by yourself!):Getting to the Apt.:If you're coming from Riverside, you'll want to turn onto Magnolia. So, if you're coming from north to south on Riverside, that means you'll want to turn…

Five Being Ten at the New Afterlife Dance Theatre

17581758 views22 comments44 favs

We got our holes in our hearts bundled onto soft wrapping cloth just like the gentleman on TV said; with smiles we set out towards our matching end of the same old stories. That's just the way…

Wild Dreams ofReality, 11

17581758 views11 comment00 favs

I took my first shower away from home as if it were a ritual cleansing. It felt especially good, even exciting to be taking a shower in the bathroom of another woman. Why was that? Maybe because it didn't have marble around the bathtub, and it wasn't e

The Beast Remembers Its Broken Promise and Starts to Cry

17581758 views77 comments77 favs

It's a good thing too—because Of the way that feeling Made her even more beautiful than usual. You shouldn't doubt such an obvious Feeling. It's a good thing— Because frankly you have Been informed before. When Beauty …

Collapsible Horizon

17581758 views44 comments22 favs

Mama sleeps in bed with us. The blue of her ghost sleeps underneath me. I love her more than anything. What does she think when we are naked, when we yell, or mimic, imbibe, curse, cry, shake, make love, roll over on her, want to die?

King of Pain

17581758 views00 comments00 favs

I woke up around 6 pm today. As always, mum would wake me up. I have this special bond with my bed and parting with her during my most vulnerable is anathema to my nature. Thrice mum would pull my feet and thrice I would groan hoping she would go…

Sounds

17581758 views55 comments33 favs

They try to incorporate a little of Ravel around their edges, the ones where their molecules bump off into other parallel realities, into other non-localities, into other potentials. She isn't buying it. She's tuned in. And she can tell.

Where I work you cannot see the sun.

17581758 views99 comments33 favs

Where I work people use words like leverage. They do not appear to denote anything.

Captains of Industry

17581758 views44 comments22 favs

Renee said, "I have actually slept with a number of Captains of Industry and would rate them, overall, deficient in skills."

Colors

17581758 views00 comments00 favs

Frowning, loosening a purple tie, Tony pushed through the golden revolving doors of a skyscraper. He drifted into the crowded midtown street as if in a daze. He was roused to his senses as his cell phone sent out the melody of his wedding song.

Reflections

17581758 views88 comments88 favs

Today the color of the skyremakes my heart into somethingless willing to break, or to judge,and I am thankful for it. Acolor not unlike walking chestdeep in the ocean and seekingbeautiful clouds and thinking Iwill be back. Dreaming with the sky.Please stop lying to me. A…

WRECKED

17571757 views77 comments77 favs

There

Game Day

17571757 views00 comments00 favs

Being awake for the sunrise, that is the good planfor writing poemsand listening to enginesbirdsand bus stop silence.Now, I'm going to smokeout back on my roof porchfrom this atticapartmentin this desert land of big-titted blondesand listen to stadium fansrage…

Victoria Gate

17571757 views44 comments22 favs

Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament.Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer…

Hart Crane Pantoum No. 1

17571757 views1818 comments1313 favs

One must be drenched in words.