Most read stories

Storm and Shelter

16451645 views66 comments22 favs

Sometimes one person's shelter is another person's storm.

Mountains

16451645 views33 comments33 favs

Crossties

16451645 views1111 comments1212 favs

Regrets lined behind him like crossties on a railroad track.

Epiphany on a July Morning

16451645 views66 comments44 favs

It's that day in July when you feel really bummed because you can't find your favorite white sleeveless shirt that you wear on the hottest days of the yea

match point

16441644 views33 comments33 favs

two roses her eyes aqua-blue no, blue-green

How it all started

16441644 views77 comments00 favs

I heard this story from my grandmother who heard it from her grandmother who heard it from an uncle, who was a monkey.

black tulips

16441644 views1212 comments55 favs

the memories return like they do every year at this time

Seasonal Poem

16441644 views66 comments55 favs

One of the poems in my collection, One Day Tells its Tale to Another, published December 16, 2012. Available on Amazon. My first book!

Kickstand

16441644 views22 comments22 favs

Past the pavilion, past the factory, past the underside of the bridge where the surfers jimmy their sloppy fingers over the oil barrels.

Boomer Tunes Pop Quiz

16441644 views1010 comments66 favs

If you're a Boomer, your brain is teaming with decades-old Pop tunes that you just can't forget. The real reason you can never remember where you put your keys? Too many of your brain cells are clinging to every last lyric to “Fire and Rain,” “Free…

Barnyard 1961

16441644 views66 comments55 favs

The boy heard loud barks and squeals, climbed on a chair, and looked out the window at the barnyard and the faded blood red barn.

Beneath the Light of an Exploding City

16441644 views00 comments00 favs

Under the darkness of their new city. The heave and moan of structures as they breathed and pulsed. Under the darkness of this city, under the hum of their florescent bulbs and the tumbling rattle of motorcars, the wheeze of their machines and the clank o

Thanksgiving

16441644 views99 comments88 favs

When our kids were very young, my wife and I believed it was important to give our children traditions that they could grow up with. One such tradition that we shared each Thanksgiving was to walk down by the cliffs along the ocean. We'd all go, our kids…

Samantha’s Note to Her Husband

16441644 views33 comments33 favs

By February, I had decided, That you'd tear out my throat every morning if it meant your favorite song would play from my neck.

Larry's "Gonna Die" Parrtayye

16441644 views11 comment11 fav

When we started plans for the party, none of us wanted Larry to die, most of all Larry himself. Actually, when we first started plans for the party, Larry wasn’t dying.

I Am Speckles the Clown

16441644 views77 comments44 favs

Food is silly. Eating is silly. Yet the camaraderie of sharing a table is not silly. It is sacred. It becomes silly when the jello arrives.

Six Ways to Say Butterfly

16441644 views22 comments11 fav

He repeated these six words like a prayer. His only confession.

THE RICH RIVER

16441644 views77 comments22 favs

I must have been six years old at that time, but the events of…

Estella

16441644 views99 comments66 favs

Everyone loves a story of love unrequited. But what about the stories of the unrequited lovee?

Let the Others Drool

16441644 views1616 comments1414 favs

They are all sleeping, but I know better. I will keep watch and if he comes tonight I will be alert and ready. When he arrives he'll see the slack mouths, the graceless sprawls, hear the grunts, snorts and snores of the other women and then he'll sense me. My eyes will…

Mississippi

16441644 views88 comments88 favs

“I won't live here,” Beth said, waving her hand to indicate the small Southern town in which they were having dinner—the most delicious fried chicken either of them had ever tasted—in a restaurant located in an antebellum mansion. She looked…

The Gruden

16431643 views33 comments33 favs

"Who’s John Gruden?"

North of Center

16431643 views44 comments55 favs

Paulette lived on the east side on Paulette Avenue. Mama dropped me off when we wanted to play Barbies. Her neighborhood was a little green lily pad in a swamp of blight and disrepair. A ghetto moat ringed around those three fancy blocks like a first line of defense,…

My Piper Laurie

16431643 views66 comments22 favs

Eddie meets Sarah Packard, a “college girl” played by Piper Laurie. She walks with a limp, a fact Eddie doesn’t notice at first because she’s sitting down at a diner table in a bus station. She’s alcoholic and writes poetry.

I’m Afraid You May Have Made Some

16431643 views99 comments77 favs

awfully evil decisions upstairs in your head that could come back to haunt you in your later years;I'm here to report your zooming about hair isn't really one of them. You have found the infernal wheel works in all four directions at once. Good for you.…

Owl, Glass, Deer

16431643 views77 comments44 favs

He calls it an owl glass: he’s allowed: he’s six.

5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally)

16431643 views99 comments33 favs

5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally) 1. The American wife asked her French husband why it took him 50 words to ask which pass they would need. He said, “Because it does,” and they argued more, each in their own words. 2. The child…

Text Adventure

16431643 views55 comments33 favs

Twenty-two tornadoes tore through Toronto, spiraling steel and stone to the streets where she stood, texting her best friend.

How Would Jesus Drive?

16431643 views22 comments00 favs

Contemporary persecution of Christians takes on milder forms of torture like having to explain away something Pat Robertson said, or constantly having to hear about Fred Phelps picketing funerals because he happens to hate homosexuals.

Girlfriend

16431643 views33 comments11 fav

As a rule, she calls me whenever she’s waiting for her train or bus. ‘Hiya… How’s life-’ she starts off sweetly. Even though I should know better by now, I can only respond in the same old way. I’ll say: ‘Hi Kate!’. Next, I’ll try to te