Most read stories

The Dock

15381538 views11 comment00 favs

Row, Caps of white, A salted escape beneath reflected light. Brother, remember those old lies? I’m off to sea to make those things right, now.

The Widow Teasdale and the Ineffable Warmth of Personal Services

15381538 views11 comment11 fav

Her cash. It smelled like seven-dollar-a-quart gardenia perfume and cave aged cheese—like hope overgrown with mildew.

I Can't Complain

15381538 views77 comments77 favs

To tell the truth, I can’t complain. Look, lots of people have it tough. I don’t have it tough...

On Not Having an Affair With a Flamboyant Minor Dadaist Poetess

15381538 views88 comments44 favs

It’s just that—well, I don’t know how to put this— With a Dadaist poet a non-affair is the height of erotic bliss.

A Scalar Boson a Day

15381538 views44 comments33 favs

. . . the empiricism of the mechanical had wound tight into her, lessons her few calendars could never impart without aid from sundials, hourglasses, clocks.

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

15381538 views55 comments33 favs

Buyers of freelance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding slowly, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same way that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.

Swimming Lessons

15381538 views99 comments99 favs

I’m from the Land of Sky Blue Waters. I grew up in a lake. I think I’m half fish.

Migrants

15381538 views1515 comments88 favs

She is too stylish to be crazy, is what the migrant probably thinks. And he's right.

some poetry will shut you up

15381538 views77 comments55 favs

o christ/ here you are again/ you sickness appearing in my brain/ pouring smog from my jaw/ my body hot and cold as though sleepless/ while i could sleep/ centuries/ undisturbed/ and awaken, tireder still./

Moon Backstory

15371537 views88 comments55 favs

Today clouds were dancing on the moon Moon had a fit but drew in a breath And let out a sigh

Unconscious Primate Pandemic Panic

15371537 views1212 comments1010 favs

I wrap my left foot

Confession

15371537 views22 comments22 favs

Tomorrow, they'd bury their daughter . . . and still, so many questions. Why would a beautiful fourteen-year-old choose for herself such a horrible, painful death? In life, she appeared the antithesis of suicidal ideation: excellent grades, well-liked in school and…

On the Road

15371537 views1616 comments88 favs

how did they not know

Ladybird

15371537 views22 comments11 fav

On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

Some Assembly but No Singularity Required

15371537 views1818 comments1414 favs

The phone rings. The oven beeps./ The locomotive whistles and howls.

Chicken Noodle

15371537 views1010 comments88 favs

Damn this airplane

At the Reception

15371537 views1212 comments88 favs

"Check out these dudes,” he says. “They're all wearing kilts. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they're wearing underwear.

Winter '69

15371537 views00 comments00 favs

One minute Rudy was sitting up close to me, asking me how could Geppetto make a little boy out of a piece of wood, and the next, Steve was pounding up the stairs, yelling, "Carla, get blankets, warm clothes; we're leaving, we won't be back."

Rising

15371537 views55 comments44 favs

The coin, so little, the watch chain, the youth, the fading softening speech, each hand and finger, the panic modeled on your own eyes, the ashtray, certain stumps along the way, the long distance, the odd feather, the jazz rope gone,…

Epiphenomenal Glider

15371537 views55 comments22 favs

Hissing through the opening, the spirits have no place.

prima vera

15371537 views1010 comments33 favs

a road moment

Brothers of the Sacred Circle: A Prayer to Ares

15371537 views33 comments11 fav

When our body falters, deny us rest. When our minds crack under the strain, forbid us sanity. When we are too tired to fight give us war.

re·frac·tion

15371537 views66 comments44 favs

bassackward/in the surreal/bathroom mirror

Same Old Song and Dance

15371537 views44 comments22 favs

You want to get laid talking socks

At the Juvenile Bubonic Plague Telethon

15361536 views33 comments22 favs

We’re not like a lot of your fly-by-night disease-based charities. Every pence we raise goes directly to St. Bartholomew’s, where 90% of it ends up in the pockets of doctors so they can buy expensive horses.

next love letter

15361536 views1111 comments11 fav

Eat me so I can sink in your mouth, my paper fraying along the sharp topography of your tongue, lodging in the holes where your teeth used to be. There, I will storm an infection until your mouth inks my words.

Matt Slade, Esq.--Mascot Defense Attorney

15361536 views33 comments11 fav

I’ve got a full day ahead of me; I have to write a brief in Lipshutz v. Fredbird, a property damage claim against the St. Louis Cardinals’ mascot for breaking a fan’s glasses as part of his routine.

Canyon In The Clouds

15361536 views11 comment11 fav

It was two days to town. His horse could only go one.

Mariposa

15361536 views2121 comments1212 favs

He would not take Prozac and talked Jesus to her as if from a bucket.

Thing To Do In Deptford When You're Dead.

15361536 views66 comments00 favs

Velvet answered the door in a red leather dress that was made with just about enough material to make a wallet, and looking like a long limbed drink of water calling out to a thirsty man.