Most read stories

it’s a true story

17711771 views11 comment00 favs

My only celebrity anecdote involves seeing Barbara Bush in the back of the Presidential limo ...

Myra's Mother

17711771 views55 comments33 favs

Smoking is like hooking up with an ex-girlfriend: you know she's bad for you and that it won't work out, but it feels so familiar and comfortable and so easy to slide back into.

A Museum of Numbers

17711771 views00 comments00 favs

At street level there is a small arrow on which is printed “Museum of Numbers” that points up a long narrow staircase. There is a restaurant on the first floor. All the way up the stairs, the air is permeated with smell of fried foods

The Clairvoyant Dwarf, The Jester, and the Tame Elk of Prague

17711771 views99 comments88 favs

All were part of the household of Court Astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) who lost his nose in a duel as a student and went through life thereafter wearing a gold prosthetic one instead and who met and fell in love with a commoner who bore him eigh

Vienna

17701770 views22 comments22 favs

I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year, as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.

It's a Wonderful Life

17701770 views1111 comments99 favs

My wife is making lunch. I suggest leftover pizza. We are going over to the neighbor’s house for pizza tonight, my wife says. I tell her that’s okay. I like pizza.

Why I like My Watches Analog

17701770 views1717 comments99 favs

watch/ the second hand sweep

The Introduction

17701770 views1212 comments1010 favs

Lucy looked up, smiled and said mine had a head that looked like a mushroom. I suppose she was right. We were sitting on the floor drawing naked bodies for our anatomy lesson and teasing each other about our lack of drawing talent. We were new friends, having met when…

Song of the Needle

17701770 views55 comments33 favs

The Black Thing spread over the room, eating away his mother's face as well as the doctors and nurses who dashed in a frenzy around him until they too were swallowed in the black singing cloud.

A Safe Distance

17701770 views77 comments44 favs

Poems, and Zebras

Takin' a Break

17701770 views00 comments00 favs

The place turns out to have a really nice ambiance, and while the pasta is only passable—though I ordered, I believe, the cheapest plate on the menu, so maybe I got what I deserved—the background dinner music playing is "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by Wilco.

Sacred

17701770 views66 comments22 favs

"What the fuck are you looking at, Carl?" She snaps, turning her head toward me as the truck edges off the road and into a field of tobacco, into those broad green leaves of ancient sacristy and modern ablution. This is not a blissful kind of field. It is not full…

Not If, But When

17701770 views77 comments66 favs

She tells me I have to face the fact that I have the heart of the Tin Man. I know the story. He had none. She is very sensitive and I have to measure my remarks because words bruise her so easily. So, I…

Zombie Night

17701770 views77 comments55 favs

The man and the lady loved to laugh. She would tuck her hair back and lay her head on his stomach after dinner while watching old scary movies on Thursday nights. She would listen to his stomach digest the food and laugh then, he would laugh and…

The serious writer and her bush

17701770 views88 comments00 favs

The serious writer looks back on a long and distinguished career as an herbologist.

Bookends of a Life: II

17701770 views1313 comments66 favs

The clacking ventilator reminds me of ice cubes rattling in your highball...

The 11th Arrondissement

17701770 views11 comment11 fav

I concluded that Parisian sexuality must be partially indebted to the cricket or grasshopper. The entrance to their flat was a wood door scarred by scriptures common to places frequented by people who have not yet made their mark on the world.

Salt

17701770 views44 comments22 favs

I imagined the crystals in my mouth. Salt flowers blooming on my tongue.

Two Little Words

17691769 views88 comments55 favs

I'll never be a Republican Megadonor or a Doomed Aviatrix. But I'm okay with that.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 13

17691769 views33 comments33 favs

The next thing we knew, the KGB started tailing us everywhere we went. They must have heard about Lenin’s Paintings, was all we could figure. Because, what if they were real? That night we went out to a pizza place where we saw the worst graffiti in t

Call Me Naked

17691769 views11 comment00 favs

[He] practiced aromatherapy and licentiousness, in no particular order.

Valentine Day

17691769 views1313 comments66 favs

Valentine Dayso excitingit means he really loves herwhat will he bringshe waitshe comes home with a hang dogexpression on his faceher valentine was leftat the gambling table

GONE

17691769 views2020 comments1111 favs

The box thuds at your feet: mug, plant, wedding photo, the 25-year pen.

Sonnet for a Unicorn

17691769 views55 comments33 favs

My sweet baby angel has baby hair Baby angel has a golden cross lit looking at the crystal pig and kind mare The drowning unicorn comes from the waves in fits. My sweet baby angel has baby talkBaby angel has a diamond shape scarburied heart shaped…

Independence Day

17691769 views00 comments00 favs

Not long ago, Owen the Second showed her a skull. He kept it in a brown cardboard box in the top of the closet. "My first wife," he said, and sneered, his lip bunching up around a scar just under his nose.

FLY AWAY

17691769 views1818 comments44 favs

Why is the sky grey he asked meI don't know, I saysudden flashes of light snowbloat the cloudssea gulls are squawkingexpect them to peck at my headI have nothing to feed them

Fine Yellow Dust

17691769 views22 comments11 fav

In the dream Yesler rolled, a broad avenue made of fine yellow dust, from Third down toward Second, and I made my way in the silence and bright morning air. To my left on the corner of Second stood the old Mocambo cafe and lounge, home to drag…

The Letter

17691769 views22 comments11 fav

I knew nothing about the letter at first. When I came in that morning and smiled and said good morning, it was a genuine smile and a heartfelt good morning. But the letter, which had arrived the previous afternoon, was already doing its corrosive work of

Sex Coma

17691769 views00 comments00 favs

If you were the ozone, I’d want to leave you gaping.

WHITE

17691769 views1010 comments77 favs

I reached for that hair and the air zagged white...