Most read stories

Facing Mecca

16081608 views44 comments22 favs

I was raised in a big city in the slow South. I know a little about cross cultural dining and where Delta Blues collides with Sly Stone, Al Green, and Zeppelin. Dirty rice in the Dirty South. Fried chicken, collards, and pintos. Fried velveeta…

Two Different Worlds

16081608 views66 comments55 favs

The boy was sure of something,She was just the one. The girl was sure of nothing, Her life had just begun. For him, he'd found his partner, There was never any doubt. For her, he was fine for now, But there was more to learn about. He thought it was a perfect…

Detienen a 271 conductores en un Stop.

16081608 views11 comment11 fav

Un consejo esconde un futuro desastre. Es como si Mar le dijese a Desierto "amigo...impresionante. Dejate elevar por la atracción de Luna y verás". Y Desierto le replicase "está bien, y tú Mar, deja que Viento lleve tus olas hasta el nacimiento de los ríos, es brutal". …

Robert B. Parker we’ll miss you.

16081608 views22 comments00 favs

Summer nights in Boston, old cast iron streetlights.

Valhalla After Dark

16081608 views22 comments00 favs

In traffic I cry bloody murder, but my bloodlust subsides once I'm in Valhalla. Chip Whitehead wants to see me on the 22nd floor before I start my shift. Charlie and the other suits have been looking at me funny since I sent Chip a memo suggesting the recession…

Key Tone Deficiency

16081608 views1212 comments1111 favs

Beware superfluous color

Jack Arnfinn

16071607 views33 comments22 favs

... and the train pulls up and my shadow from yesterday steps off, and I'm standing on one leg balancing just like the weather between winter and spring, I hear a siren and my heart races, I'm about to step aboard when I hear footsteps behind me and two hands cover my eyes…

more horrid haiku

16071607 views88 comments77 favs

a mere forty years/and maybe you become twelve,/maybe sixty-three.

Tour Guide

16071607 views11 comment00 favs

“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”

Travis & Jared

16071607 views11 comment00 favs

“Now I see clearly my whole life is pointed in one direction — there never has been any choice for me (Travis Bickle, "Taxi Driver").

A Catalogue of Ways to Die at Sea

16071607 views33 comments33 favs

Quimby’s eyes lit up. “Oh, lads, there must be a thousan’ ways to die at sea! I’ve made th’ Atlantic passage a good many time; lemme recount some manners of death I’ve witnessed with mine own eyes.”

Castor and Pollux

16071607 views00 comments00 favs

Over the stained fence the spectres flew and that is where the rain was turning colder and colder in the time when the trees had become mostly bare.

Natural Histories I

16071607 views44 comments22 favs

I feel about the universe/ as Abrahamics are supposed/ to feel about their Yahweh, /their God, and their Allah:/ I am in fear, I am in awe, /I am in love.

The Diaphragm

16071607 views22 comments11 fav

They had a deal, she reminded him. If he didn’t want to wear a condom all the time, he’d have to help with her birth control.

The Assistant

16071607 views66 comments33 favs

The Assistant is lost again in a grid city. Again she feels disconnected from the world. Where she is the sound has been switched off.

Shutter

16061606 views11 comment11 fav

Background foreground life in the middle

Running

16061606 views44 comments11 fav

On the way home, “Friendly honk,” he said.

The Shopkeeper

16061606 views00 comments00 favs

“There goes that slut Kerri Stanton,” the immense woman behind the counter chuckled to her patron. “Who the hell does she think she is?”

March

16061606 views2121 comments1111 favs

The lungs forsake their love of breath. The arms/ resist throwing off the small weight of sheets.

They're All Bleepin' Poets, Jack

16061606 views1010 comments33 favs

Occasionally I will pick up a quarterly— As a budding poet, to do what I oughterly, And peruse the pages for helpful examples That I can crib or use as samples.

Everything You've Got

16061606 views66 comments55 favs

I reach into my pocket for my keys and discover the cough drops Iput there a week ago have melted. Now my fingers are sticky. And I don’t have my keys.

When technology fails

16061606 views33 comments00 favs

But Jeffrey was flabbergasted and couldn’t explain to the officer why he was speeding. All he could manage to get out as an attack of Tourette syndrome hit were nasty, flamboyant obscenities. The Alabama state trooper wasn’t amused.

Rubber-Band Requiem

16061606 views77 comments66 favs

“Now we lay you in your grave There was no way you could be saved You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell Which is why you will burn in hell.”

Visions On The Beach

16061606 views1212 comments55 favs

I walked along the beach today, and there I saw them all; including the latest lost: little Tiven, Tommy, Michaela & my Paul. Grandma painted at her easel, set upon the dune. Uncle Eddie bent in half, laughing like a loon, Oliver growled…

Wattle and Daub - 3

16061606 views1010 comments55 favs

Walter met Danial at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They didn't have much in common at first, other than AA, with Walter on the recovery side of treatment and Danial reluctantly just beginning.

Don’t Ask Me to Collaborate

16061606 views1111 comments77 favs

Except with the language I was born to./ Occasionally, with painters and collagists-// dead now, typically- who can’t voice/ opposition to my misappropriations.

Sway

16061606 views55 comments55 favs

It is said that lovers find lips in the dark through secret brain circuitry.

Human Resources

16061606 views44 comments55 favs

Lawrence Light had two degrees: business and theology. I liked the clean font he chose for his resume. At the interview, his face was open. His eyes were bright.

Grandma (My Mother) At Christmas

16061606 views44 comments11 fav

A tanka/haiku poem about grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

White girl/boy angst

16061606 views33 comments11 fav

I’m secretly hoping for a huge bouquet, a fruit basket, a pickle jar of urine in a lunch bag on my doorstep, even.