Most read stories

Grandma (My Mother) At Christmas

16861686 views44 comments11 fav

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

Farm

16861686 views00 comments00 favs

Still as the knife on the counter there still. Like mothballs in a chest. One with clear bags and newspaper clippings and your scarf inside it. The baby girl could put a mothball in her mouth and suck it like a penny. The way too close to a light bulb bur

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

16861686 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,

Epiphany on a July Morning

16861686 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

Wall-to-Wall Bullshit (or, 'The Unauthorized Autobiography of Smiley McGrouchpants Jr. Esq. III')

16851685 views00 comments00 favs

"I can't believe my 'best friend' and my 'girlfriend' would actually start dating if I authorized and coordinated repeated threesomes for us!" Robert Eww was saying, holding aloft a dagger and book, with an olive wreath around his head.

bunk

16851685 views1010 comments88 favs

I bit her ear and / it was burnt toast

Sparks Beneath the Surface

16851685 views2323 comments1010 favs

If I should wake/ before I die,/ just shoot me through/ the one good eye.

Quicksand

16851685 views55 comments00 favs

At 25...

Need and Desire

16851685 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.

ID

16851685 views22 comments22 favs

He does not read what he’s giving them permission to do to him, just signs the release.

5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally)

16851685 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…

Biz One-Upmanship 101

16851685 views00 comments00 favs

"One-upmanship" is a strategy for defeating an opponent somewhat unfairly without actually cheating.

I Wake Up Teetering

16851685 views66 comments55 favs

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

Some Splendor In Some Grass

16851685 views99 comments77 favs

As they lay in the pasture on a warm summer's afternoon, with the sky blue, the sun shining, he looked across at her, peacefully asleep by his side. How he loved her. Their year together had been one of joy and happiness.He idly nibbled on a blade of grass, remembering the…

1994, What I Wanted

16851685 views1212 comments44 favs

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

Chip's Bar

16851685 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…

An Orphan of Fire

16851685 views77 comments44 favs

I break your flesh and make music on the harp of your bones.

Catching Forks

16851685 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…

Let the Others Drool

16851685 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

16851685 views88 comments55 favs

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

The Hater

16841684 views66 comments11 fav

You look at people and despise them all.

Assiduity Six

16841684 views1212 comments66 favs

"Every generation is a new generation, isn't it? What's so different about your generation?"

A Babe in the Mirror and Another in the Woods

16841684 views00 comments00 favs

“Would you look at that one!” my father said. “Who did she know?” my mother asked. “Who did she blow?” my father said loudly, and burst out laughing. I laughed too, although I didn't know why. My mother shot him one

Bloodsport

16841684 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.

Chocolate Diamonds

16841684 views1010 comments77 favs

with facets

Tour Guide

16841684 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!”

Kickstand

16841684 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.

The mannequins

16841684 views44 comments44 favs

I try to enjoy my bookbut the mannequins keep tapping at the windowWhen I look up they vanish Outsidefibreglass clouds are kept in placeby invisible wires——Sometimes the mannequins …

Danse Macabre

16841684 views1414 comments99 favs

Each day, they trot the coiffed/ and painted cadavers across the stage.

Natural Histories I

16841684 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.