Most read stories

Forty Two

14841484 views33 comments33 favs

The gate squeaked, the gravel shuffled and the letterbox clattered as February 14th's mail cascaded to the ground.

All These Poets

14841484 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,…

Andy on Bloomsday

14841484 views22 comments11 fav

I wonder if regular nonfashion clothes are out forever, if these kids will ever dress normally like, you know, Phil Donahue, again.

formation of a black hole

14841484 views44 comments22 favs

who can quite say/when careless talk & confidence/slips into that other charged thing/so minimal at first

Dumpster

14841484 views11 comment11 fav

When flash and bang merge you are, according to the manual, in deep do-do.

Old Houses

14841484 views00 comments00 favs

The rocking chair will bite your toes.

Winter Paints Nelson County

14841484 views33 comments11 fav

It was more than just taste/ more than a point of view/ and oil and pigment/ that painted a store front church/ a box with a cross in a vacant lot/ that welcomed desperation, faith/ and imagination.

Marion and Carolee

14841484 views1010 comments88 favs

I never took more than a few pills at a time, just enough for a treat on Friday night.

Sacre Something

14831483 views11 comment00 favs

My first abroad journey completed. A picturesque way to end it all, really. I’m into that, I think to myself: making things play like movies or dramas or as beautifully as I can make them.

Just Stopped In For A Raspberry Slushie

14831483 views66 comments55 favs

Certain disorders lend themselves to poetics.

Chancing the Moonglow

14831483 views77 comments77 favs

It's become sort of a habit now when Elsie's husband is away on business two or three times a month that we take the afternoon off and drive nine miles across the river to Marginalia, Arkansas and the Moonglow Motel with its red, neon vacancy sign and although to some, two…

Lord of the Poets

14831483 views77 comments66 favs

I almost caught a poet today.

Happy New Year's

14831483 views77 comments22 favs

Start white flour diet.

Man Writing Story With Ears Plugged About Painter Who Only Hears in Color; Black Ink, 2002

14831483 views00 comments00 favs

Ready, here we go.

Afternoon Chores

14831483 views66 comments22 favs

She is trying to quit—nasty habit this smoking. Still, this is the only time she lets herself smoke these days: Laundry day.

The Weight of a Gun

14831483 views44 comments33 favs

The first time I ever held a gun, I was three years old...

Luminous Nights, 5

14831483 views00 comments00 favs

It turned out that my brother's newly acquired building in downtown Pasadena, was what developers called a "see-through" building. That meant you could look from one side of the building all the way through to the other side, without obstruction. In oth

For my lost child

14831483 views1010 comments77 favs

and where have the years sped how distant was your youth

BOXES

14831483 views33 comments22 favs

Lama’s mother is dead. She died when Lama was just outgrowing her ballet tutus. When Lama talks about it, it is with the air of one who picks honeysuckle over jasmine. It gives sunshine, she says, to graves. Our epitaphs are so mechanical otherwise. Un

Regarding Hank

14831483 views00 comments00 favs

Won't speak a word against 'em. Car trunk stunk like bad chicken long after, but I won't speak a word against 'em.

Your Tits Make My Feathers Fall Off

14831483 views66 comments66 favs

He thought she should have come with an owner’s manual So he would know how to operate the equipment It was definitely more than he bargained for Or knew how to handle She was too hot

His Essay on the Meaning of Poetry

14831483 views66 comments44 favs

Poetry is conceit; emotional, intellectual or technical.

Koch Brothers

14831483 views1111 comments99 favs

When Chuck dies, I’ll throw/ a party and dance, a little drunk,/ across what I’ll pretend/ is the old shit’s grave.

EAGLE

14831483 views11 comment00 favs

It was an eagle in the waves Those eyes make no mistake Especially from a mile high Blue fish and tuna Too dumb to run

Fine, she said

14831483 views44 comments44 favs

A rope is cleaner, he explains with a straight face. He's calmed by the visual.

Hope's Amanuensis

14831483 views66 comments55 favs

I was low on carburetor / oxygen and my fraud protection / had just expired.

Bag

14821482 views11 comment11 fav

No chance for Hallo, we sank into an unlit station doorway and he fumbled through my shorts.

Vampires Suck

14821482 views00 comments00 favs

The little clapboard church sits stiffly in the sun. It's steeple marking time with it's shadow on the sidewalk. It is the last place most people would think to look for a vampire, but I am sure that one is in there. Contrary to popular opinion, there

Grimace

14821482 views1010 comments1010 favs

I dreamt I was raped the other night. Sometimes it was me, that is, and sometimes it was another woman with a dark bouffant hair-do. Definitely outside though and the hulking back of the man was covered by a charcoal wool…

Question

14821482 views99 comments1010 favs

When the dark shadows of his limp eyes told us life was slowly seeping away, stolen by his stroke, his wife signed the “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” order and, tearfully leaving the room, she turns, asking a final question, “Think a needy family could use his…