Most read stories

On the Bench (Matthew III)

16191619 views1414 comments77 favs

turn your face

Whoever Said

16191619 views55 comments11 fav

Though we came to life as to a school/ We leave without graduating

Time Flies

16191619 views55 comments44 favs

Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince

Down

16191619 views00 comments00 favs

Locked at the highest rung Unable to budge at all

Arcana Magi Wisp

16191619 views00 comments00 favs

Gon found himself slowing behind everyone. His wings slowly tired. The bird took a chance and pulled up. He could feel it behind him.

Lavender, A Liberal

16181618 views88 comments1111 favs

Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit, named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced. Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl, who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at all. …

Pull Another String

16181618 views55 comments55 favs

Now as my fearful hand goes unwittingly up I search the faraway trees for the closest possible answer I know I don't know. The clever waiting beast is looking my way with an intelligent roving eye that says he likes to hit. It doesn't matter. You're worse…

The Hangman's Poor Gift

16181618 views1212 comments1010 favs

of placing the rope just so; of settling the veil with care --

Coleridge on Urine

16181618 views1616 comments1111 favs

What a beautiful Thing / Urine is

The Beauties Abandon You

16181618 views2323 comments1212 favs

The skin will stay but you won’t see it,/ camouflaged by creases, tags, and curious/ deposits of renegade fat and pigment.

Big Al Dissects Literary Fiction since No One Else in the Bar could pronounce Aristotle

16181618 views11 comment00 favs

“Well” I say. “What do you think about the dilemma of a guy who’s tortured by a history of incest and bondage?” “Depends” Says Al. “On who was cested and who was bonded.

Tiger-eyed

16181618 views00 comments00 favs

The tiger-eye beads around her neck would wink at me like a nervous uncle sharing a secret with a child. They roll on her sternum like marbles. At night, on her nightstand, they whisper my secret to the patchouli-scented room. How long have they known?

from Presence

16181618 views55 comments44 favs

facts are facets are / things in the act // the truth speaks softly // as time saying amber / to the enduring sap // words come and go / like leaves like men // we the tree remain ...

Prisoners (edited)

16181618 views1515 comments44 favs

This cell the sole certainty, all else steeped in mystery. Why should we be here?

Drive-by Neighborhood Fiction Flash

16181618 views99 comments77 favs

It's about dinner time. My neighborhood is in Sa-bur-bia. Driving my gold 2007 Malibu i pass Chick. She notices me and stares standing in front of her house. We were friends about ten years ago. Chick is still divorced. Tall skinny legs. Educated blu-ish eyes. Wet…

Heat

16181618 views1111 comments88 favs

Flames dance behind glass

Nineteenth Century Noise

16181618 views2121 comments1313 favs

The virtuoso tortures a violin/ in homage to Paganini.

Half Staff

16181618 views1313 comments99 favs

We mourn/ in perpetuity and are inured

On being offered a seat on the Bart train

16171617 views88 comments55 favs

Remember when I entered a room and turned heads is my youthful charm a sputtering fire in the hearth

Processes

16171617 views1212 comments99 favs

How to Boil Water How to Cook an Egg How to Eat How to Think How to Love How to Die

The Land Collector

16171617 views1010 comments77 favs

He liked owning acreage.

A Killing in the Market

16171617 views55 comments44 favs

Everyone hoped to be assigned somewhere they could just drop in on their way home for Memorial Day weekend. Someone said, Blake, you’re single. You hate your family, don’t you?

Age is Relativity

16171617 views11 comment00 favs

Albert Einstein was probably the genius of our age. Joe Biden is a close second, yet Einstein not only had better hair but a keener knack to think of things that no one else could, or would, or would ever want to, since if they did, their brain would shockingly combust in a…

Slippery Slope

16171617 views66 comments66 favs

A man who is sexually attracted to playground equipment was recently banned from “any location with a slide” after being caught having sex with one. Christopher Johnson, 46, was described by the newspaper who reported this item as having a “powerful…

Strawberry Fields Forever

16171617 views44 comments22 favs

There is nothing literal about the color of strawberries. It is a beauty too celestial for this world. It can only be imagined.

The Puppet Maker

16171617 views22 comments00 favs

My sister Janis called me from Berlin and said to turn on the news. You could see the thick flurries of snow that were falling there and the flat feathers of peoples' breaths issuing from their mouths as they took turns swinging pick-axes, standing on top

Opening Your Fiery Eyes

16171617 views1010 comments55 favs

as I imagine only you canyou're the ocean on fire before anyone else hasbroken that ancient seal, or simply taken the first icy plunge.You can eatall the bitterfruit there is, but that stilldoesn't make theworld a more hatefulplace. Only people…

Beelzebub

16171617 views55 comments55 favs

The jewels were dragonflies, buzzing lazily, Beelzebub’s hair a golden meadow.

Sleep Music, No. 1

16171617 views55 comments22 favs

Now they are sleeping in a poppy field, sun-drenched warm afternoon girls lying on their stomachs and sides, faces in flowers, and flowers blowing, blowing. If this afternoon were every afternoon, the world would be cured.

Freeze! It's the Library Police!

16171617 views55 comments44 favs

A Texas man was recently arrested for failing to return a GED study guide to his local public library. He'd kept it out for three years. This is the kind of news story that brings joy to a librarian's heart.The library where I work just installed a…