Most read stories

Epiphany on a July Morning

16761676 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

West Side of the Tracks

16751675 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.

Quicksand

16751675 views55 comments00 favs

At 25...

Santa's stuck

16751675 views66 comments55 favs

Santa’s stuck/you say? In the chimney of course./The lard-arsed ol’bastard struggling

The mannequins

16751675 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 …

The Jade Rabbit, Chapter One

16751675 views11 comment00 favs

Even when the sun is gone and things get dark, usually the moon comes to reflect some light of hope until a new dawn can emerge

Moony Star Moony Star

16751675 views44 comments22 favs

a lost children…

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

16751675 views44 comments22 favs

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

Mississippi

16751675 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…

Political Poem

16741674 views1010 comments1010 favs

As if to ask if I'm okay, as if to ask aren't we the same two on this wet December morning as ever, as yesterday, a month ago even, she shoots me a look as I stand by the bed, then her sane mild brown eyes…

For My Sons, a Poem

16741674 views1212 comments77 favs

In time, I will forgethow he said "smooshie" for "smoothie"and "eyebrowns" for "eyebrows,"how his upper lip dimpled when he laughedin that uproarious, wild toddler way.How he wheedled to be wrapped and rocked,after a bath, even at age five,his long calves uncovered by…

The Caganer

16741674 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

You Know It!

16741674 views33 comments00 favs

"Every single thing ... " Hunk Hokum pronounced from the stage, flexing his muscles and prancing around in his red pseudo-loincloth, "has been totally scripted ... and ... every action ... has been ... preplanned-out ... in advance!"

Sparks Beneath the Surface

16741674 views2323 comments1010 favs

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

Tour Guide

16741674 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!”

Friends

16741674 views33 comments22 favs

“Hi. I’m Rita Bates,” I had said. “Can I sit here? The boy who introduced himself as Thomas told me I could, so I did, and his friends all introduced themselves in turn. Around the table there was Bev, Ernest, someone whose name started with an F – maybe

Dirty Laundry

16741674 views44 comments22 favs

There was a small slanted hole through the edge of the door, and another one in the door frame. She pushed the door closed to check. The holes matched up.

ID

16741674 views22 comments22 favs

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

Thanksgiving

16741674 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…

You Never Forget Your First

16741674 views1212 comments22 favs

There is nothing like your first time, and by that I am referring of course to the first time you purchased a 45.Going to a record store and buying a 45 is a uniquely Boomer experience. Because, alas, there are no more 45s. Or, for that matter, record stores. The…

Wiscasset, Maine

16741674 views1313 comments88 favs

She bought a dog with short legs to make her own legs look longer.

Chip's Bar

16741674 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…

Ah, The Drink

16741674 views77 comments11 fav

My mother was Irish as Paddy's pig. So all her family. Lovely people they were. Also, seldom seen among the Folk; stone cold sober. My father's family; Bavarian German. Bavaria's the wrong side of the German tracks. Frankfort people laugh at Bavarians as people in…

Mosaic

16741674 views99 comments77 favs

MOSAIC Your eyes coal-rimmed, busted, burned by betrayal. You and I, knee to knuckle, skinny with disorders and blurred around our edges. Challenged by our experience and the ash of past-love dusting the grate, the state, the…

Assiduity Six

16731673 views1212 comments66 favs

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

Mockingbird, Mockingbird

16731673 views33 comments22 favs

I remember when I first came to California, I heard a mockingbird sitting in a tree, calling out in the names of other birds. It was down in L.A. I was staying at my brother's house in San Gabriel and driving in every day to the campus at UCLA to go to s

black tulips

16731673 views1212 comments55 favs

the memories return like they do every year at this time

Chocolate Diamonds

16731673 views1010 comments77 favs

with facets

Fanmail to Ellen Page

16731673 views00 comments00 favs

You and I will never meet. You will never even know I existed. Even in dreams you will never imagine me. Someone told me once that your sleeping mind cannot conjure up new faces. It just spits out all the ones you’ve ever seen and that’s it. That’s it.

Blues Repeat

16731673 views99 comments44 favs

don't look at me honey, I fell on the table, my hair is on fire, my heart is unstable