Most read stories

13. spring makeout haiku

14961496 views1414 comments1111 favs

tangerine mouthfeel

Vulgarity

14961496 views11 comment22 favs

suddenly she blurts out: “You are vulgar.” There is actually no perfect translation to it. “Bastos ka.” She meant I was vulgar, but also disgusting, distasteful, offensive, rude, salacious, obnoxious…

Poet's Offer to Help Grieving Goes Unheeded

14961496 views22 comments22 favs

Remembering you is easy We do it every day, When little Mike and Joey Ask when the hell is Daddy ever coming home to play?

Assiduity Eight

14961496 views99 comments33 favs

no snippet tasting

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 30

14951495 views44 comments22 favs

Anatoly Gringovitch took a swallow of beer, thoughtfully put the cap on his Ferrari da Varese custom fountain pen, and launched into his story:

ANGER

14951495 views11 comment22 favs

You gave me everything, delivered with a hungry mouth. Tease.All taken away, erasedby a few words.Lips that poured forth and lips that took insharp, electric pleasures.Now withdrawn, thin, petulant.Not satisfied,you crushed my sanctuary.with so…

Why Your Choice of Music Matters to the History of the People

14951495 views44 comments44 favs

Once there was a real honest to God holy spiritout there that was a gift of loving kindness meant for everyone to share; unfortunately, it was given to all the wrong people, or the wrong people simply stole it. Either way the wrong people are…

Drinking

14951495 views00 comments11 fav

After you started drinking your meals and hating politics I wanted to climb inside, live in your stomach and dissolve. I wanted to make you see, hold you captive with arms stretched, pinned. listen again, swallow…

Span

14951495 views1212 comments88 favs

That’s a long time/ to live with the certainty/ of your death

Kindness

14951495 views55 comments44 favs

Two days ago, a friend of mine and I met at my house. She was a nurse, and could only visit my house very late at night when her shift ended. We don’t meet often because she is very busy saving lives and generally being a more useful human being in societ

"We Are the Last Minority" Say Surrealist Poets

14951495 views22 comments00 favs

"My sister's parrot admires your armpit," X-Lautrec says. "Would you be so kind as to nail an avocado seed to a cup of black coffee?"

Martin

14951495 views44 comments44 favs

He'd sit or stand, as if this was common to see: in the street walking by, such a man.

A Thousand Miles Away

14951495 views22 comments11 fav

In the house by a kidney-shaped lake, her grandfather was speaking to a stranger about a foreign war that had never ended, had spread close to home.

Exile

14951495 views44 comments22 favs

Dandelions wither as I approach and the grass dies under my feet.

Monday Lunch

14951495 views99 comments66 favs

Earlier that morning a tree in the yard had filled with starlings, and on the way home after lunch, the sky held planes that looked like starlings, floating together.

The Perfumed Kitten

14951495 views00 comments00 favs

We named her Big Cat—I don’t know why. Maybe because she was already grown when we got her, unlike the kittens we’d seen in the pet store window that Dad wouldn’t let us have.

How to Pass among Mortals

14951495 views99 comments44 favs

Take no form or face beautiful enough to cause warfare, or that which would provoke inanimate objects to song. If a tree wishes to flower in your presence, request that this happen very slowly.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 12

14941494 views22 comments22 favs

Ellen and I stepped out into the hall to discuss the situation. Maybe we should make some sort of offer to purchase these paintings, because if it did turn out that they were for real, well, the value could be endless. Think of it. Vladimir Lenin, the pai

Wisdom the Hard Way

14941494 views22 comments11 fav

Loaded on acid, Billy blatzed into a 7-11, holding his dick like he hoped the store guy would think the thing was an Uzi. The guy laughed and pulled out a .38 Special and the cops carted Billy to jail. …

Hotel Mechanics

14941494 views55 comments44 favs

He switches to quantum mechanics and starts tinkering with his sleeve memorizing a theorem he'd figure out if he had the time for a deep breath, he takes a deep breath.

All These Poets

14941494 views77 comments66 favs

All these poets with their wrinkled hands full of freshly poured over poems are driving me into the dried wheat fields like a black block of crows. Offering a collectable cigarette, they light the damned thing with another hand-rolled poem,…

Bedtime Stories

14941494 views11 comment00 favs

Even before I tap on the door I know I am being watched with one eye. My footsteps have surely given me away. A swift tug on it reveals her to me—half of her, that is, and I slink past the threshold, to her. From her eyes I see that she has…

Accuracy

14941494 views1515 comments88 favs

The form I completed yesterday filled out several attachments, including one for passive business loss. I did not believe I had incurred business loss, just that I was freelancing part-time.

walk off the animal

14941494 views1010 comments44 favs

I don’t know how some can do it. Can they just walk off the animal in the yard or something, and forget about love altogether? Some have that built-in coldness of the soul, I guess. I don’t get it. The blood does not seem to shake their hearts. Are th

We Cannot Cross the River

14941494 views66 comments22 favs

We cannot cross the river until it freezes. Bekker predicts January. For food we gather leaves, berries and roots from the thick forest behind the cabin. Suarez boils what we find into a revolting paste that we spoon into our mouths with dirty fingers.

Assiduity Fourteen

14941494 views55 comments33 favs

Don reports everything to Uzma and Rasheed, I'm aware of that. It doesn't bother me. I'm not hiding anything from them or anyone else.

Walking On Air

14941494 views1010 comments77 favs

Nik Wallenda was going to walk a wire stretched from Sarasota Bay across US 41 to a condo on Gulf Stream Drive.

Fictionaut or Not? Write On.

14941494 views99 comments11 fav

Okay, I'm here; I'm participating. Enjoying the back & forth with other writers. Waiting for penises and fetuses to move down the "Most Recent" list, but working around them. Well, that's kind of unintentionally visual.This essay, like many other reads on here, is…

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas

14941494 views55 comments55 favs

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

Horace

14941494 views22 comments22 favs

The young boy sat on the swing, hearing sirens in the distance. The tops of his shoes were dirty. His fingers as well, where he drew stick figures of people in the dirt. His…