Most read stories

Writer's Envy

16011601 views66 comments55 favs

You may think you've tasted envy, but yours was just a sour sip of wine at a civilized wine-tasting. Mine is bottom-shelf, well-brand gin in a biker bar with miss-the-urinal piss stains on the floor.

PIGEONS

16011601 views66 comments33 favs

Ellen decided to soft-pedal the one month to live thing. Really, there was barely time for the patient to read Ellen's brochure.

Sounding

16011601 views1313 comments1212 favs

Grey would rather be in the trees or down by the river. When a wind comes up, he grabs the wooly blanket from the hook in the barn and calls Phoebe. They stretch the blanket out between them and sail into the grassy meadow that slopes down the hill from t

Dog

16011601 views44 comments00 favs

I’m not the creative type like my friend Bosely, an Irish Setter. I’m a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

Curry

16011601 views1212 comments66 favs

I looked around in my pantry but there were no sentences I felt like cooking.

Light Eyes

16011601 views88 comments22 favs

Once, when he had been married for a year, she sent him a card which said, "If you have seen a cat smoke a pipe, you have got it made." There was an illustration of a big, black panther, standing up on its hind legs, smoking what looked like a big tub of

Devoured Worship

16011601 views66 comments22 favs

This wasn't going to be about her anymore.She tied her strong purple balloon to the neck of the wounded horse. Her skirt and her top felt like armor's breath. The tingle across her scalp felt warm. Small rug scrapes that made her think of her last dog, before she died.This…

For the Wives

16011601 views1414 comments88 favs

She parks the car and trudges insidefor her daily visithoping that the new rouge hidesthe old tears.Five years now she has been comingto see himHe looks nothing like the pictures toanyone but her.They say she should go homeand rest, relaxShe doesn't know how…

A CAPITAL TIME FOR TWEETING, PLUS WHEN TO SHOOT A MOOSE

16011601 views44 comments33 favs

“Buy Shoes On Wednesday and Tweet at 4:00” is a new advice book which tells the reader the best possible time to get everything done, from flossing ones teeth to visiting Zanzibar. As a public service, I've used the information provided in that book to create an…

To Build a Fire

16011601 views99 comments66 favs

One frozen hand protruded from the snow.

Not Even Know It

16011601 views88 comments00 favs

I remember the man well, though he didn't notice me.Even though a million tiny things happened to cause his hand to brush me away from his neck, he didn't notice. Much like the way his eyes bounced off women's bodies as he hurried down the sidewalk in his blue wool…

The Work of Beauty

16011601 views88 comments77 favs

the steady, persistent work of beauty

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 18

16011601 views00 comments00 favs

We all ran out of the house into the communal garden without fences. There stood Von Rotten with a smoking rifle in his hands, and our mascot Digger lying on his side, limp. We all looked at each other in disbelief.

Neactains, Quay St.

16011601 views1010 comments66 favs

Rarely is Quay Street so clean, Monday in rain, Neactain’s ticking over with Slow jazz and crosswords, Stout and steaming anoraks.

NEWS

16001600 views77 comments44 favs

Truman sits in his car on an early Tuesday morning. He rolls down both front windows down, but despite the infusion of fresh air, the car still smells of stale meat and sickness.

Puerility

16001600 views55 comments44 favs

--So, why are you here?

Happy Birthday... Mr. President

16001600 views33 comments11 fav

Her dress swirled around her as she stepped into the ballroom, looking every bit as sultry as her recent Playboy cover...

The Piano Player’s Dead Rejoice

16001600 views99 comments99 favs

Requires one of those leaps.

Disappearing Ink

16001600 views88 comments44 favs

Our ink was disappearing. All of it.

Portrait

16001600 views44 comments11 fav

Hers or mine? You figure it out, jackass.

On Socks

16001600 views66 comments55 favs

There’s a hole in my sock, just large enough that my big toe keeps slipping out.

Chlorine Dream

16001600 views44 comments44 favs

death spoke in a swimming pool in late june:

Modest Proposal

16001600 views1818 comments1111 favs

It could be fun,/ with the guns, explosives, Molotov/ Cocktails and all,

Waiting for the Voice on the Line

16001600 views1818 comments1111 favs

hoping for a happy outcome/ like a kindly voice on the line

Independence Day

16001600 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.

Sounds

16001600 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.

The Threshold of Unfinished Business

16001600 views77 comments66 favs

Uh oh, the dry cleaning ticket

Vienna

15991599 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.

When it Gets Dark

15991599 views33 comments11 fav

The world—the natural world—was terrible and beautiful in wartime. The leaves shuddered off trees. The pockmarked fields. The fallen brick chimneys. The way the birds heaved together in enormous flocks like rescue missions and then just as…

Lost

15991599 views55 comments11 fav

I can't find my way back to the library. I've heard of this happening, that if you leave even for just one day and for a very good reason, as good a reason as mine, you may not find your way back. Now why should this be so? I do not understand this library. It houses…