Most read stories

Rejection at the Gates of Heaven

16601660 views1010 comments55 favs

"Some Purgatory in order, innit?"

Aged Beef on the Senior Meat Market

16601660 views44 comments44 favs

Burger King has rekindled Flame, its $4 broiled-meat-scented spray.

Story Board

16601660 views1313 comments1010 favs

There was something about his eyes that seemed more sly than happy. He looked like a teamster winking at a mayor who’d just paid him off to keep trucks rolling through Scranton.

Unclean

16601660 views55 comments55 favs

The first time Momma shows me a demon is during revival week at church.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 18

16601660 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.

Out of Character

16591659 views88 comments77 favs

Co-workers have started calling him Jesus, Manson, Foghat, Doobie Brother, hippie, hipster, Grizzly Adams, Dude Lebowski... there’s really no end to it.

Haiku for the Worried

16591659 views66 comments33 favs

Real life escapes you.

Notes from Matrimony, # 9

16591659 views44 comments44 favs

I arrived Sunday evening to a darkened house. Everything unplugged. Even the fuses from the breaker. Meticulous, this undoing. Silence has a sound. Cold has a voice, a pearly cigarette whisper. It says, “Metaphor?”

Out of Stardust

16591659 views66 comments55 favs

Nor woke, as always, to a dark room smelling of the lavender she kept in little bottles to perfume the otherwise stank air. Outside, she could still see the edge of the moon hanging there like a lopsided smile. The early summer wind blew in and stirred the faded floral…

Written Six Weeks Before

16591659 views1818 comments1616 favs

March 16, 2006 My mail, e-mail, and phone calls go from the ridiculous to the sublime. Apologies for the cliché, but I can't resist its perfect applicability: In my mailbox today yet another catalogue of boob jobs in bikinis and an invitation to explore…

Mice and Men

16591659 views99 comments99 favs

Some life in Rosco's walls. He listened with his dead wife Sonya's stethoscope: rustles and scratching, a collective heartbeat.“Vermin”, said Vlad, Rosco's neighbor. “Will take over if no kill.” He smiled with one tooth, urped some vodka. “I…

Return Trip

16591659 views99 comments99 favs

Lou Ann and Bobby drove in from Slidell and had a small, New Orleans wedding with just a one night honeymoon at the Monteleone because the next morning Bobby had to go. It was barely daylight as Lou Ann kissed him goodbye several times and blew him kisses as his cab pulled…

Keep Your Man Crazy in Love the Redbook Way

16591659 views00 comments00 favs

You are like gasoline on the fire of my desire–you send me higher and higher into paroxysms of earth-shaking erotic explosions. Remember–the “light” catfood is the kind in the turquoise bag.

Mercury Unbound - 6

16591659 views88 comments22 favs

Liszt, Piano Sonata in B minor. I don't like it but I can't stop listening. It doesn't fit my mood, or the high plains landscape, or the early evening, pink and blue, pastel colored sky.

Dark Site

16591659 views22 comments00 favs

Though some days... I feel as though I'm nothing more than the ultimate hedged-bet should the offender be living out his last days on earth, holding my arm as we both feel our way through the long dark corridors of tragedy.

Complicated Game

16581658 views11 comment00 favs

Peggy woke up in the bedroom smelling burned pumpkin and she instantly knew her husband Tim had remained unconscious and insensible on the couch again and let the candle burn down. She and Lennon had watched him the previous night take control of the…

Everyone the Same, But Not At Once

16581658 views66 comments00 favs

The surface temperature of the sun is 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Begettings

16581658 views1818 comments1212 favs

However did we make it this far/ without murdering one another as the other sleeps

A House Burning

16581658 views00 comments00 favs

There won't be dancing, anymore. That isn't true, that can't be true; but there is no floor to dance on, you know?

elegy to the death of an empire

16581658 views66 comments66 favs

lol romney

Good morning, Mr. Mourning!

16581658 views11 comment00 favs

Now, I am getting angry! Now you want me depressed too! GET OUT! GET OUT!

Summoned by the Board

16581658 views66 comments66 favs

They were all sitting naked in a sauna and drinking Diet Coke, with droopy ball sacks and sweat rolling over massive man titties and paunches. Yahweh sat on an upper bench, wearing dark goggles to protect his eyes from the brightness of his own still radi

Bookmarks From Hell -- A List of Unsavory, Alarming and Downright Nasty Things Librarians Have Found In Library Books

16581658 views77 comments55 favs

Why would anyone stash a used condom in a Bible?

Road Movies

16571657 views22 comments11 fav

Like puddles when it rains, like relationships in chains.

Curse at Your Smoking Gun

16571657 views1313 comments1212 favs

// opening act: van featuring balloon featuring drugs // headliner: lubv ya babe

Librarians Love Me!

16571657 views22 comments11 fav

Librarians love me, you want to know why? I don’t dog-ear pages, I don’t even try.

Dream Eater

16571657 views22 comments22 favs

I began to feed him. All the things I could think of - horror movies, cheese, salt, pickles, chilli. Vitamin B6 tablets washed down with warm milk. Anything I could do to grow little nightmares for my new pet.

Where's My Phreakin' Nobel Prize in Physics?

16571657 views77 comments33 favs

Where I went to college, you couldn’t swing a dead cat in a physics lab without hitting a Nobel laureate. I know–we tried. They finally made us stop–it wasn’t fair to the cat.

Bad Listener

16571657 views44 comments11 fav

Sunday afternoon was the best. The kids drew straws for a chance to sit on the stool in the Kitchen with the broken armrest. I think mom thought it was an antique but it was just a piece of shit her dad picked up second hand.

Just Do It

16571657 views55 comments22 favs

He is sitting in his bedroom trying to decide what to wear. He has an appointment at five. If he wants to make it he has to either catch the bus, which comes in about fifteen minutes, or drive in. If he wants to drive in he needs to put petrol in his car,