Most read stories

from Presence

15461546 views55 comments44 favs

we gave divided houses / child stand up anyway

A Jovial Saturday Sight

15461546 views2121 comments1212 favs

No twinkle- so, planet, not star./ And bright, so either Venus/ or Jupiter. I’m guessing, Jupiter.

Roy and Ray

15461546 views55 comments22 favs

Roy Carver owned a big tire retreading outfit over on the Mississippi.

Gravity

15461546 views33 comments11 fav

"seventy five degrees longitude submerged in holy rivers out of my mind emerge anointed paramahamsas"

Cornelius van Linjpleel's Contributions to the Study of Etruscan Tombs

15451545 views55 comments44 favs

Cornelius van Linjpleel discovered and excavated for himself a lone Etruscan tomb not far from Populonia in 1898.

Early One Morning at Denny's

15451545 views00 comments00 favs

Throughout breakfast Quebec kept watching this investor fellow, John Lytle. She tried remembering something about him, about when they'd first met. Her first impressions were very nearly always correct. But all she could bring to memory now was that it

The Night Shore

15451545 views33 comments22 favs

Somniloquies rise like the drowned . . .

Santa's stuck

15451545 views66 comments55 favs

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

Two More Poems

15451545 views66 comments77 favs

1. Weeds of the World (Unite!) We invade the invaders and they invade us, these little Blooming weeds. They raise five flowers and let them blow Into the winds like sheets of stars. All of us Steer by their turning tide. All of us will eventually …

Candle Illumination

15451545 views00 comments00 favs

Mint upon my palate, I rub sleep infused eyes and crawl under the covers. Oh blessed sleep, please descend upon this body and transverse this fatigue. Eyes closed, bring a wavering blackness upon subtle lids. The conversation begins…

Late at Night

15451545 views1313 comments1212 favs

My eyes hold my mother. It's not easy being human she tells me. She always told me. Sure, but the stories are lovely. We all know that. We generate the tales, tell the tales, kiss our children. Live on in their eyes, though, don't…

Center of the Universe

15451545 views22 comments11 fav

The Unlucky Thirteen

15451545 views00 comments00 favs

They were working on the factory floor when they died, the auspices of mayhem filtering out to a host of ravens gleaning the neighboring fields. Clouds of them fled the scene around the time of the incident turning the day into twilight…

The colour! The power! The vision!

15451545 views00 comments00 favs

... and photos of friends from former lives: the Wolfman; Drac; the Mummy; my ungrateful Son; even my gold-digging, coat-tailer ex-wife.

Mr. Wazzeldot

15441544 views66 comments11 fav

Mr. Wazzeldot has seven legs. He lives very comfortably. He likes to sit by the fire. There's a large cushion for a chair, and in the evenings, he sips his Bloody Marys. I know because I visit him…

Nothing Revolts

15441544 views00 comments00 favs

"Nothingness had had enough. Nothingness had become militant. It had bought a camouflage jacket. It grew an afro. It burned its bra. Nothingness was pissed, and it wanted its stuff back."

even dead body

15441544 views00 comments00 favs

I'm a jogger of these parts, but I've yet to discover a dead body, or even dead body parts, or worse yet, discover that my parts will be discovered by some unfortunate jogger.

Speeding on the Highway at 2AM

15441544 views33 comments33 favs

I am speeding on the highway at 2AM because no one is here...

Uncle Harlequin

15441544 views55 comments33 favs

My Aunt's husband liked to dress up like a clown

Catch & Release: Dog Person Depression

15441544 views33 comments22 favs

Instead, I get things like, “Why can’t you find a nice man with cancer or a bum leg?”

Rolls

15441544 views33 comments11 fav

Nothing is ever hoarded in our house, everything is eaten.

My 27th Great-Grandparents

15441544 views1515 comments1111 favs

Early Spring, 1075, Northumbria: Judith, too ashamed to speak, too angry to cry, waves her handmaiden away. She wants no food. Wind drives icy rain across the thickness of…

Artist's Statement: Oracle

15441544 views1515 comments77 favs

Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.

The Glass

15431543 views1212 comments1212 favs

Not only half-full/ but stress-fractured

Tick

15431543 views1010 comments33 favs

Palms planted firmly against his temples, Travis paced the room like a caged animal. Giant black bats screeched in his brain, their pointy wings scraping at the edges of his cranium.

Why We're Going to Eat Uncle John's Suicide for Breakfast, Tomorrow

15431543 views33 comments11 fav

[Party!]

My Back (Facebook) Pages*

15431543 views88 comments55 favs

It's all over now, Baby Blue...

Turning Thirty

15431543 views1414 comments33 favs

Of all the authors in the library, it was a wife from Maryland who called out from her marriage dormer I was not to read her.

Walking Coma / Resurrection Happens

15431543 views1313 comments1111 favs

It’s possible to forgive the past its trespasses / stop seeing the future as a threat, reimagine / the present as a goal.

a parable

15431543 views55 comments22 favs

jaws blossoming with drool,/ a captured wolf slinks low/ across the crowded land/ for that most tender lamb/ to catch it by surprise.