Most read stories

Caucasus

16161616 views33 comments22 favs

On shingle of seashells & Bullet shells, Ghosts drift along the shore Of the Black Sea.

I'm Never Going Home

16161616 views66 comments44 favs

After the ship stopped shaking, the angry flashes of warning lights discontinued, a few people could be heard sobbing or whispering prayers.

Edge of Wolf

16161616 views77 comments33 favs

edge of wolf howls and howls past sunflowers and skeletons

Harvest

16161616 views88 comments44 favs

When the hay was ripe it stirred and rippled like water.

May, Twelve

16161616 views55 comments44 favs

I feel unlike myself, I think. I've been afraid of notebooks, pens, writing. I've hoped for telekinesis between empty pages and my mind. The hoping leaves me empty handed, and I have nothing to show. I feel unlike myself. I feel the whites of my eyes as…

Prayer to Ray Bradbury

16161616 views55 comments33 favs

Dear Ray Bradbury, yesterday was my thirteenth birthday, and I could not stop thinking of the Mennonite girl in the milkwhite bonnet, the squint of her eye, the twitch of her anxious finger on the trigger, sudden holes bloomi

Rob's Send-off

16161616 views22 comments11 fav

They could cram Rob inside the trunk and then drop him somewhere in the dingles.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 15

16161616 views55 comments33 favs

—Jesus, a snoring cat. No wonder Alex put this cat outside.

The Coward

16151615 views66 comments22 favs

George was the biggest coward alive. But he was too afraid to admit it. But that therein was his cowardice. He couldn't face the truth. He couldn't face his weakness. It made him uncomfortable, the thought that he might need to change.

Osama, Osama--He's After Your Mama!

16151615 views00 comments00 favs

Captain Zeep came to Earth at last century's end to help pave the way for a Zorkian takeover by 2012 at the latest. Key to the game plan: Earthlings had to get dumber than eggplants. When George Bush stole the White House, Zeep figured, Bingo, dumb…

City Streak

16151615 views22 comments11 fav

the little crummy salon that churned out little fat women with pinked curly hair

The Two Stairways

16151615 views11 comment22 favs

She remembered how cold it was in the factory that day. A few of the high windows stood open as usual, necessary for ventilation when the machines were all running, when the concrete floors were packed with the sweating bodies of warm human workers. The

Winter in Waveland

16151615 views55 comments22 favs

They build them high they do in Waveland, Mississippi.The tall houses with their skinny thighs spread wide flirting with the dusky coast, like antebellum ladies petticoats lifted, stockings wetted, ankles bared, savingtheir hems from the unpredictable tide,…

Ode to Flannery O'Connor

16151615 views22 comments11 fav

Gert sat in the car and wiped at the inside of the window while the defroster blasted at full strength. The shards and slivers of ice that networked across the windshield were just thick enough to hinder visibility. Bane wrenched the door open and shoved

Were I Konstancja Gladkowska

16151615 views44 comments22 favs

My playing would falter languidly, and transcend itself like a wishful Nocturne

You, the Real Story

16151615 views1010 comments99 favs

I don't need to be toldhow natural you are, not here.I'm reminded every singletime I open my eyes.What I want to know iswhere have you gone? Whyhas it taken you so verylong to return? But Iknow the answer. You aresomewhere fighting for your dearlife. It's what we all do--in…

Thursday at the Office

16151615 views11 comment22 favs

David looked at the plaque sitting on top of his computer monitor and wondered if he’d even touched it since he’d placed it there. He picked it up and brushed off six years’ worth of dust into the wastebasket on top of the mustard-stained sandwich wrappe

Kamal (from "Echoes: Five Men Speak")

16151615 views11 comment00 favs

Hoo-ah! I love these open mikes, I get a chance to pour it out, this… whatever it is, this passion, all this love from I’ll never know where, and then, and then, sometimes, too much hate. Everything’s like all zowie!—splashing scarlet and purple,

My Life in Prepositions

16151615 views44 comments55 favs

Thanks to prepositions I can be on drugs, get into music, sway under the influence and rock around the clock. I can jump up and down, crawl into a sleeping bag, sleep under the stars, wander into dreams, and wake up feeling down. I can drink from a bottle, sit…

The Feet Must Go

16151615 views33 comments00 favs

There's something wrong with my feet, if they are my feet at all.

Today the Smell of Worms and Wet Pennies

16141614 views00 comments00 favs

Martin Heidegger wore hearing protection out on the tarmac at JFK. The runways were broad and he danced and leapt with the freedom of a Cats performer while he guided planes to the terminal.

Tinsel

16141614 views33 comments22 favs

1. It started coming down in flakes. The room was warm and the windows were double insulated, but she was naked and her body was being dressed in snow. He stood over her with the spray can. Maybe you can be the Christmas tree this year. You won't keep me till Christmas she…

Introduction and Apology Written Against the End of Time

16141614 views99 comments88 favs

They articulate my failings as a human being./ They articulate my greater rage at human beings// here for such a short time and at the precipice already

The Ageing Beaver

16141614 views22 comments00 favs

This was just noise now – pure, raw noise, grabbed from their throats and flung high by some sharp claws of violence buried in their breasts. Even from his third floor apartment, they sounded like they were right outside his window now. It was if they h

Library

16141614 views33 comments11 fav

Let's start from the beginning. Your mother's face in the phone. Your parted lips. Your surprised tongue. Hands deep in the folds of your skirt. The poet filling your pockets with blue and orange. The poet filling your notebooks with slowly drifting fields and gramophones…

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.3 - c.5

16141614 views00 comments00 favs

The old man moved on an automatic wheelchair. He stopped just short of Sora. He waited for her to move, but all she did was shed one tear.

She Called My Poem Nice

16141614 views33 comments22 favs

“There is no future in art, you will not change lives with flowery words. Please don’t rock the boat”

In Due Time

16141614 views1111 comments1010 favs

Almost every weekend I'd ask Henry to go out with me and Marge, telling him we could double and, hey, maybe he could bring Ellen, who he dated a while back, who still asked about him. I'd suggest such things as going to a movie or out for a few drinks to reminisce about our…

Cougar

16141614 views33 comments11 fav

What follows is one of those moments, though to some people, it would seem a fantasy, perhaps a "Wizard of Oz" era tale.

(4) Caution

16141614 views00 comments00 favs

“You shouldn’t have gone inside,” he said, after she told him what had happened. “I know that’s what you’re used to doing here, with people we know. But he’s not from around here. Don’t go back over there, okay?”