Most read stories

Burger King Blues

15981598 views11 comment00 favs

Read signs sometimes and you just might get where you're trying to go. When Eddie suggested they stop for a Whopper, Dennis said no. "Fuck Burger King, man. Let's get that Wendy's up there." They got…

Staying In Place Staying In Place

15981598 views44 comments00 favs

The way each intersection in a city where you’ve lived a while becomes layered with personal archeology. The cafe that replaced a liquor store you avoided, and the friend (or lover) you broke up with there, and the way on the day of the big fire you

O Where Did Our Funny Go?

15981598 views66 comments55 favs

What a nation! First we lost our money Now we’ve lost our funny

Flamboozled in the Beak

15981598 views00 comments00 favs

I was looking for an inn to get a cup of calf soup before jacking ribs at the mutton joint. Feng calls, running numbers on an engine zone out in the valley.

Greener Than Thou: Saving the Earth, One Smackdown At A Time

15981598 views22 comments11 fav

Are you a hostile person who gets into trouble when you express your anger? Would you like to annoy the hell out of people and get away with it?

The Old Dog (in response to Brian Warfield)

15981598 views33 comments00 favs

Blend the dog a drink and sit down beside him and draw straws for regrets.

Artist's Statement: Oracle

15981598 views1515 comments77 favs

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

everything moved in circles

15981598 views1414 comments99 favs

everything moved in circles like the music, the booze and the drugs

to a gregarious stranger

15981598 views33 comments00 favs

Three lines.

Northeast of Eden (Memoir; Editor: Charlotte Curtis)

15971597 views22 comments22 favs

Snakes have no eyelids, no hips, no lobby in Washington (some creatures do!) and little support at home.

Mr. Wazzeldot

15971597 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…

Strange Times

15971597 views22 comments22 favs

From my place, down here amongst the earth, we have many names for you.

Okay

15971597 views88 comments77 favs

I supposed reluctantly that Princeton is soft as Macalester College is soft. A person could die just for having attended U.W.-Madison or Yale.

TRAUMA

15971597 views77 comments44 favs

Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

How Veetzers Set Us Up For the Zorks

15971597 views11 comment00 favs

We're doomed as a species. The Zorks are coming to eat us. It all started when Joey Cacciatore, the dumbest crook in the history of the world, got Veetzers swarming like blowflies in 1972, and thereby ensured the upcoming…

Space Program

15971597 views1212 comments77 favs

Mercury and Gemini disappointed.

My Latest Failure

15971597 views22 comments22 favs

Jason, the obnoxious host, thrusts his microphone against my nose.

The Ice Cream Mantra

15971597 views66 comments33 favs

Chant the ice cream mantra. Prance the do dah day ballet. Trot the t-bone tango two-step. Dance the livelong day away.

Lovely

15971597 views11 comment11 fav

I would open an eye, waiting for it to absorb the scant light in the room, and I would see her on the far edge of the bed, the topography of her hips now a battlement to keep me at bay.

maybe just a little too sensitive

15971597 views33 comments11 fav

"do you know what your problem is when it comes to girls?" she must mean other than the fact that they're all completely insane. or at least all the ones i've dated.

Speaking to the Dead

15971597 views1515 comments1010 favs

I didn't hear your last words or see your lasteyes. I didn't reach you in time, so I sat by your corpse,silently saying goodbye. I am in that process,not sour, not sweet, that yoked speaking which can't(because the heart won't let it) utter its whisperedlast word, but…

Morphine

15971597 views44 comments33 favs

Until the ivy hides me in

boring

15971597 views88 comments44 favs

You don't want to knowthe details of my lifethe gossipthe boring moments strung togetheracross the lap ofmy sense of responsibilityit drives methrough the daysdoing this and thatchore, check on the listi am tired and need to stop for a drinkand then, i am filled up for a…

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

15971597 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.

A Few Good Band Names

15971597 views44 comments33 favs

Auto and the Grease-Pits Sugar Cube Full Frontal The Holy Grill Crazy Al and the Squirrels Talk Is Cheap Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cold Zippers Destiny Howl Epiphany Critter Cold Kneecaps Crepes Pulled Pork Baby Seals and the Club

Morning People

15971597 views00 comments00 favs

she thinks she looks good in her short red dress, black makeup around her eyes, last night's lipstick a slap of crimson on her cheek. "like this," she says, holding the hammer above her head.

Rising

15971597 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,…

Lotus-eaters

15971597 views11 comment11 fav

empty wine bottles, and a single abandoned boot

Startle Reflex

15971597 views77 comments77 favs

I’m decades in and it hasn’t gone away. In all other respects, I am normal. Life is hard, but I’m not complaining. The thing is, I am in a constant state of falling.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 21

15971597 views77 comments44 favs

Francesco needed a magnifying glass to read her little missives.