Most read stories

The Winter's Too Warm for Bears to Sleep

15661566 views88 comments77 favs

The winter’s too warm for the bears to sleep, and they get up in the middle of the night with insomnia and wander about the streets in their pajamas, knocking over garbage cans, looking for a midnight snack of some kind. They’re getting kind o

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 25

15661566 views66 comments44 favs

It was 6 a.m. when the phone next to the bed awakened Francesco.

Exile

15661566 views44 comments22 favs

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

Balm (excerpt)

15661566 views00 comments00 favs

my second language / to silence / plainsong of / the breast

Herd

15661566 views88 comments44 favs

We may think about so many things and thoughts about rain. We may think about where it is going, where it comes from.

The Old Man and the Cigarette

15661566 views55 comments00 favs

Flicking the cigarette into the river the man's face becomes soft, as if waving goodbye to the only real attachment that he has felt in decades.

Assiduity Eight

15661566 views99 comments33 favs

no snippet tasting

The Poisoning

15661566 views1111 comments99 favs

The Poisoning I used to call my dad Serpico. Thirty years on the police force, and though a respected officer, he never fit in. He never had beers with the guys at the end of a shift or engaged in the more lewd locker room talk. None of the other cops were privy to which…

Uniquer Than Thou

15651565 views99 comments77 favs

brilliant green eyes

Still Dancing b/w Smokey Conversation

15651565 views1010 comments55 favs

an engine stalls out in the parking lot the driver tears her skirt coming through the door

The Listener

15651565 views22 comments00 favs

They think because you are a writer you are not much of a listener and so you begin to recognize all of the great opportunities to be much more of a listener and then you shut your trap and get sucked into the whorls of her big wet brown eyes with Italianate…

Esmée

15651565 views33 comments11 fav

Esmée sat alone at a table on the terrace at Marina Jack’s in Sarasota. She had been there ten minutes and no waitress had approached her.

Larry Swain's Universe

15651565 views66 comments33 favs

By fiddling with the time space continuum and mixing in liberal quantities of quarks from his "Li'l Bang Dimensional Digester", Larry created an entirely new universe in his garage. This was a flagrant violation of Cosmic Law. It could not be ignored, nor

The Hero in Heart of Darkness

15651565 views1313 comments99 favs

Remember the equatorial heat, the flies,/ the lurking hum and scream of jungle,/ the squalor? Remember the functionary.

Christmas

15651565 views88 comments33 favs

First of all, there was no snow. I seem to remember that. And there was no Christmas tree in the house.

Independent Assiduity, part one

15651565 views99 comments33 favs

This is me pitching a recently completed screenplay to a film producer at lunch the other day:

Sunny Side

15651565 views44 comments44 favs

I was so used to the silence of late summer afternoons, when I could roll my hoop through the empty, sunlit piazzas without meeting another shadow, that at first I mistook the footsteps for the beat of a metronome spilling through an open window.

The Gift of the 12th Congressional District of Michigan

15651565 views22 comments22 favs

Other men looked up and, rather than feeling pleasantly surprised at the sudden sound of ethereal metal crickets in their presence, left the restroom after hastily finishing their silent shaking. Mitch joined them, feeling like a coward for being afraid o

Johnny

15651565 views22 comments00 favs

He also had OCD. He had to kick every dog he met. Johnny killed a lot of dogs and was bitten by many others. He was a cruel bastard.

Two More Pennies Towards the Proper Procedure of the Pudding, If You Please

15651565 views88 comments77 favs

I always thought I would feel your hand, always, Lay with you as we flew higher together, laugh with You in the little spaces left between certain trees, like tiny blue flowers that only appear suddenly, made secretly Of…

Melanie

15641564 views66 comments00 favs

But now she was no longer the little girl.

I See Your Face Before Me

15641564 views00 comments00 favs

The summer was announcing itself in thick waves of heat that rolled like a slow motion hurricane inside Mark Keeler's 1971 Mercury Montego. The car baked in a…

Elevator to the Angels

15641564 views55 comments55 favs

I opened the closet door and there stood Eugène Ionesco lost among our clothes.

Love Las Muertas

15641564 views00 comments00 favs

a dozen girls with Encarnación's face flit past, whispering kisses along the part of my hair, tickling their hems along the cuticles of my nails.

Old Houses

15641564 views00 comments00 favs

The rocking chair will bite your toes.

Five Evangelists

15641564 views1111 comments66 favs

Five evangelists in bathing suits baptize a man while green chilies roast on a Ferris wheel rotisserie

Imported Beers of the Romantic Poets

15641564 views66 comments11 fav

She burps in beauty, like a frog Who sits on lily pad so green, Resounding nightly in his bog But to my eyes unseen.

Inside Out

15641564 views33 comments33 favs

Who hasn’t at some point of the day wanted to dredge up everything in your pocket just to see what it is.

Deadly Decoy

15641564 views00 comments00 favs

‘A whole damn plane is missing and the only damn clue we have is a 9mm bullet,’ Picasso said to Victor Bravo whom he calls Torv. He’s his partner at the Picasso Investigation Agency. They questioned the guard assigned on the night of the plane

Men and Babies

15641564 views44 comments22 favs

"Mama skipped the training bras and just gave me her old bras. I'll be 25 before I can wear her old bras..."