Most read stories

A Day in Dusk.

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And a delicacy in the right regrets.

Mr. Kunitz, Mr. Lowell, Mrs. Craig

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Although I think we can easily work it out because we are not here in the Yale graduate school, and diction is the theme of the story. Diction is a choice in language.

At the Juvenile Bubonic Plague Telethon

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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.

I've Bought You A Present

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Look out your window and know that the universe conspired to craft the sunrise for your morning tea, the mug clasped in hand, the light bouncing from the balcony railing. The empty seat next to you will always be filled and I will never properly thank y

Mr. Wazzeldot

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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…

Beverly Abbey

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Downton Abbey and The Beverly Hillbillies. They're practically the same show.

Speeding on the Highway at 2AM

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

The Catcher and the Caught

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Like the swift night-black blue of a cormorant as it suddenly dips into a rush of white cold water,eyeing its possible food, we too sweepdown on what we think we see, rising wet sometimes with the reward,or hapless, dripping, we try again.

Rocket

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The Chicago to Denver fast train clocked 90 MPH plus, but braked hard on the long curve through town, sparks ringing flanged wheels.

Philip Guston Painting of the Courtroom

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While the head of the KKK stands by for the next order, ready to mete out punishment, and smoking a cigar. They are so efficient, like ex-Nazis.

At the Reception

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"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.

Bait Shop

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They wanted to go fresh water fishing, so I had to buy worms. None there in the saltwater town. Drove about 10 miles over the long bridge to cross the bay. I'd been there before. Walked in and a crusty, little skinny man got up from his chair. He: Watcha need? Me: Fresh…

All Fall Down

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He just up and dropped dead one day, Charles said. Pretty tough on Karen, I opined. Charles looked the other way.

Strangeness

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The goose on the roof isn’t aware it is doing anything odd...

Hardware Store Tour

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The Plaza had a chess-board floor, green wood booths, and the lights stayed up. I might be combining a memory of Fitzie's in Binghamton. The Plaza felt like a preppy soda fountain with beer.

December 1, 2016

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Polite society will cheer/ as another body is discovered// and disposed of. The cheers/ will drown out the gasps

Dream(ed) Life

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From room to room, neither closet nor drawer contained any remnant of pleasant memory.

wolf of my soul

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Happiness is the twin disobedience, to hear, to burn, to fret, desiring union. They shall touch flesh, bluish even, that elicited the happy city's sin. Why be silent? The untouchable nothing? Let there be that place, a little swelling therein, which

You're All Knuckles

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Her eyeballs are made of fur, like plush little bumblebees at home in her sockets.

Dusty Winnemucca Road

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respect your parents. or not. stay put. or not. finish school. or not. get married. or not. stay married. or not.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 58

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Anatoly Gringovitch was listening to the dress rehearsal of Hausenstockmann’s Constellations at Auditorium Rainier III in Monte Carlo.

Kingfish

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Time stole you from underneath the goldendock. Writhing there, slick as a flapping tongue;lips gored, red, whose gaping could embolden weak hands behind the blazing buck blade, long ago pierced in your summer quietus, beneath the soft shade of a tackle box, as the…

I Want You

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to have something, but I don't think you need anything from me. There are poems that belong in your hair and no one else's. They should be like stars that only appear every one thousand years or so, then can only be seen when you are…

My Dad was a ditch digger

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men sitting on stoops women earning the rent by working as servants in the rich folks yard

Mother O'Grady's Last

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Christmas night was closing in at the Cantrips alehouse in Aberdeen, a firm favourite for riggers and other men and women who lived life close to the horizon. Sometimes, on a Saturday night, things might get a bit rowdy but Mother O'Grady would stand firm and bring out…

There There There

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i hear the boom boom boom in the room room room

Strength & Luck

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Strength & Luck By Nonnie Augustine There was no food in Ireland for young Patrick Kennedy who'd known nothing of blooming. So he crossed the wintry sea in a bucking, groaning boat to Liverpool. Once the damn ship docked in…

My Third First Novel

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One of the publishing industry’s dirty little secrets is that first novels sell much better than second novels. So why not enhance your chances for success by calling your second novel your first?

Sugared. Spiced. Salted.

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They continued sitting by the fake oasis, drinking single malt, eating soy crackers and chatting about the quality of escorts in glitzy glamping resorts. The Paring happened on number three. Just as the gold leafed chocolate fondant oozed decadent Bolivia

Of Tongue and Cheek

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Our beautiful currencies and stamps/ disappear into the digital vortex/ of accelerated appetites.