Most read stories

Chicken Noodle

15411541 views1010 comments88 favs

Damn this airplane

Letter to a Lost Friend

15411541 views77 comments66 favs

I keep attempting to start a correspondence with people / but they end up not being interested in me, / either that or I scare them away / because I usually begin with: / “Well, my favorite philosopher is Hegel..."

The Secret of Belief

15411541 views2121 comments1414 favs

I don't believe in symbols but there's a hole in my living room window in the shape of a bird

prima vera

15411541 views1010 comments33 favs

a road moment

some poetry will shut you up

15411541 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./

Blackout

15411541 views33 comments11 fav

The blackout lasted longer than anyone thought. From my fifth story window, the whole city seemed to shut down. I heard noises above me. How could it be?

Matt Slade, Esq.--Mascot Defense Attorney

15401540 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.

The Facts of This Life as Its End Approaches

15401540 views1414 comments1010 favs

The knees remind you: you are old,/ and broken, and unlikely to improve

On Not Having an Affair With a Flamboyant Minor Dadaist Poetess

15401540 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.

Robots Among Us

15401540 views22 comments11 fav

Father hands Billy a length of rope. Billy builds his resolve, fights back his tears, heads into the kitchen. It's time to become a man.

Conversations

15401540 views1111 comments1010 favs

That won’t kill me, will it? I asked. Maybe, the doctor said.

1888: Mrs. Sherwood

15401540 views1010 comments99 favs

Margaret will take her seven away from his raging Irish hammers slurry Saturday night honks smashing red eyes. They'll board a secret train countryside bound where they sing the songs of her own dead Mam who lived poor in the world but…

Thick as Thieves (my new gang)

15401540 views00 comments00 favs

He reached into the bag on the table and pulled out a ten inch record, sleeved in brown paper, with a circle cut out to display the label information. He handled it delicately, like a fresh egg.

The Code of Hammurabi

15401540 views55 comments55 favs

We pull up chairs. I breathe in her Bath and Body Works vanilla, read her paper slowly and aloud because the ears catch what the eyes miss. Her sentences are awkward, stilted.

news through a window

15401540 views77 comments55 favs

TV and power cord valorized in dust,/ wires and digital guts unimpaired, I’d guess . . .

Brothers of the Sacred Circle: A Prayer to Ares

15401540 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.

Glorious Zinzins

15401540 views66 comments11 fav

I do not know what zinzins is, what a zinzins is, who zinzins is. I do not want to know

By Derangement of All Our Senses

15401540 views88 comments55 favs

We will collapse in a storm of images

Full Frame

15401540 views00 comments00 favs

A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

Snatch 7 (come 11)

15401540 views88 comments66 favs

...the scream and the face...

At the Juvenile Bubonic Plague Telethon

15391539 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.

Prophetstown

15391539 views22 comments11 fav

The elders of the town will tell you that as soon the prophet mill arrived everything went to Hell. Before the process was streamlined, prophets used to be grown organically in the community. They popped up only where the ground was tilled and a prayer was planted. They…

Confession

15391539 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…

For My F-Fellow St-Stutterers

15391539 views22 comments11 fav

Funny, funny stuff. She'll be here all week--be sure and tip your speech therapist!

THE BOX

15391539 views11 comment11 fav

Ladybird

15391539 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…

My Drifter Doppelganger

15391539 views22 comments11 fav

Looming ahead was another polite suburban party at which, after a couple of pops, I'd say something that embarrasses my wife in front of her girlfriends. Or so she claims.

Five Breaths Or Less

15391539 views33 comments22 favs

She flew through the air, linen skirt billowing around her. Below, her buckled bicycle was taking a different route. Less aerodynamic than she, its trajectory was brief, crashing into the ditch. Elspeth kept on flying. Time slowed, and expanded

Robot Museum

15391539 views33 comments33 favs

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF ROBOTS!

shakey

15391539 views22 comments00 favs

You held my hand when I hit the ground and told me the shakes would start soon.