Most read stories

Grandma (My Mother) At Christmas

16981698 views44 comments11 fav

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

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

16981698 views66 comments55 favs

I got on the Greyhound Bus at 11 a.m. and sat by myself staring out the window. I could see the reflection of my own dark beard in the window, a 27 year-old man with a huge poem bursting my heart, gasping to get out into the bright lit-up world out there,

Mississippi

16981698 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…

Arcana Magi Pure Vol.2 - c.4

16971697 views00 comments00 favs

Mayumi could see as far as her eyes could, all the buildings hugged by the trees. Roads stretching outward as if reaching for something far away.

A Coin, Two Coins

16971697 views99 comments66 favs

It hangs unspoken in the sadness he pushes through his harmonica, while his hands work the old, beat-up guitar that tries to be a Gibson for his fingertips.

Kickstand

16971697 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.

Everything You've Got

16971697 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.

Caster Knox

16971697 views00 comments00 favs

Caster had always imagined the Consensus as a big room, as big as the world, filled with white space and people with quantum wings, flitting about, creating information. There were tinted bubbles for people to share for privacy, and the lights never went

The Ebsen Reaction

16971697 views00 comments00 favs

...the fatal bleeding-out of the love receptors. They call it “Juliet's Tears.”

Ode To Poetry Slams

16971697 views22 comments00 favs

It is a dark and stormy night, naturally We’re trying to get some sleep at a Travelodge in Eureka when I get up at 3 a.m. to write “Hard motel pillow receives snoring from neighboring room” O Thesaurus, we need another word Maybe it sh

Meadows

16971697 views77 comments77 favs

The whole thing is broken. It's like an egg. I'm not saying this to get you to say something else in the sunny opposite direction of the tattooed scar upon my painted backyard scene. I don't really care. It's only on me. Not on you. I'm glad as…

Passion vs. Security

16971697 views77 comments77 favs

They blew in the doorway of the café at the French Hotel like two sparrows chasing each other. Their wings down in the dust, unheeding any danger in their hunger for each other. I knew the man who was about to become her husband, so maybe this was her las

In the Opinion of the 20th Century Velveeta

16971697 views11 comment11 fav

The bananas are insured.

1994, What I Wanted

16971697 views1212 comments44 favs

Xanax, A hand gun, And the courage to pull the trigger

Chip's Bar

16971697 views00 comments00 favs

Bill texted me at 3:44, invited me to join him at Chip's, where he was having a drink. Chip's Bar is a great dive, and I accepted without hesitation. Ten minutes later I was on a crowded bus filled mostly with fat people, and twenty minutes after that I was…

Every Thing is a Hole in a Thing That It Is Not (A Theoretical Fiction)

16971697 views44 comments22 favs

A is a hole in the series of letters, each of which is also a hole in the series of letters.

Catching Forks

16971697 views22 comments11 fav

Last night Jim taught me how to catch forks. Meaning, he taught me how to throw them. But he called it catching forks. It was late, and we were low down 3rd street, south of the Bay Bridge, the baseball stadium, all the people and cars, on top of a warehouse. There were a…

The Caganer

16961696 views00 comments00 favs

Jaume jumped up from the bar, a wide smile across his face. He hugged his old friend and planted a kiss on his wife's cheeks. He was buzzing from the chance encounter, marveling how life had brought them together after all these years. There had to be a r

Tour Guide

16961696 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!”

Greenback Fly

16961696 views88 comments77 favs

It doesn't take a genius to figure how he sank, in the drink, like Jeff Buckley. Like a stone.

Playtime

16961696 views33 comments22 favs

Her head was free from restraint...

Need and Desire

16961696 views66 comments33 favs

“I mean it, Hanna. I don't want you to.” But his leg felt carved away where her head had lain. One stupid thing jostling another for attention. He was afraid that if she touched him again, he'd have her on the ground.

I Wake Up Teetering

16961696 views66 comments55 favs

I wake up on the edge of the mattress, teetering. The dog is looking at me funny.

The Late, Late Show

16961696 views55 comments33 favs

This is my secret source of income, you see....

Salinger Pays Caulfield a Visit

16961696 views99 comments77 favs

Out in the world again, pretending to belong.

My wife denies being my older self.

16961696 views44 comments33 favs

What are you, my judge?

Let the Others Drool

16961696 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…

Falling In Love Again

16961696 views88 comments55 favs

Marv felt a stirring. Warmth in his gut. "Maybe we should get together," Marv said.

West Side of the Tracks

16951695 views99 comments22 favs

The bus heads west on Route 36, toward the next stop – Howell, New Jersey. After driving ten minutes, and after crossing the tracks, the bus gets a flat.

Bloodsport

16951695 views11 comment00 favs

At last one of the men on the line bowed his head in a silent prayer for deliverance from what was about to come, then lifted his head and shouted loudly for his fellows to charge.