Most read stories

Five Million Yen: Chapter 40

15101510 views22 comments11 fav

Ben was dreaming of sex with Claudia. But, in his dream, he could hear Dan Arris calling his name and pounding on a door. The fear of Dan Arris was pushing out the delights of Claudia.

Myself Today

15101510 views22 comments22 favs

Suddenly I'm not feeling it anymore. / Poetry has become insufficient. / I can't do it like I used to.

Napomo 17: April 25 - 30

15101510 views1111 comments55 favs

As air warms and warm/ winds stir, green becomes the force/ that surges the plains.

Snow

15101510 views77 comments11 fav

She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

Lessons from Survivors

15101510 views00 comments00 favs

You cannot go back, you cannot go home, you cannot cannot cannot…Only in memory is it possible to travel back in time. We all imagine it. We relive happy moments, sad moments, we exist, time exists and it passes. We cannot stop it.

In The Place Between - Part Three

15101510 views22 comments00 favs

“I do not know if you can hear me, or if you can talk to me. Some people do not believe in people like you, you know, spirits, ghosts or whatever you are. I do. I know you are here because of what happened here.” I could not speak. I did not feel I could.

The Winter's Too Warm for Bears to Sleep

15101510 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

Hope's Amanuensis

15101510 views66 comments55 favs

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

Aurora Borealis

15091509 views99 comments55 favs

I recalled the one night stand I'd had with the girl one balmy summer night in Minneapolis. We lay on my bed in the moonlight, and I touched the nipples of her tiny breasts with the thumb and pinkie of one hand.

The Listener

15091509 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…

What Keeps Us Awake

15091509 views11 comment00 favs

On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…

Global Arms

15091509 views1010 comments22 favs

~(+)~

Style Shifts

15091509 views55 comments55 favs

Style Shifts “Oh, yes, my cousin. We were rude boys until the armed gangs started to gather. Used to be we could pass a night driving, playing our songs, acting tough. Yeah. We'd mouth off, flash some teeth, spark some anger when we felt like it. We…

Glossolalia

15091509 views55 comments22 favs

Method of divination. Open a book to any section. Drop your hand onto the page. Read that there is an exorcism happening in the other room.

Thanking Harry

15091509 views22 comments22 favs

At a candlelit table near the back of the restaurant, Jack and Lois greeted the waiter as he delivered their drinks, a diet coke for him, and for her, a vodka and cranberry. He apologized for the slow bar service and promised to return in a moment to take their…

A THOUSAND PARROTS

15091509 views11 comment00 favs

  The parrots woke Eddie up. That and Rocker snoring in the twin bed. A thousand parrots flying over the motel? They squawked, God how they…

MOTHER MOUSE AND HER BRATS

15091509 views00 comments00 favs

Oh, you aren't going to lecture us, for heaven's sake?

Mommy

15091509 views77 comments55 favs

I miss her.

Death by Dinner

15091509 views22 comments00 favs

I can't believe it's Frankie, but there he is at a table on the far side, just in front of the big picture window. I hold the menu close to my face and peek again over the top, watching as he reaches under the white linen tablecloth to plant…

As Anti-Vegan Bias Spreads, SaladShooters Fight Back

15091509 views00 comments00 favs

The Vegan Defense League is a vigilante group formed to fill the gap left by local law enforcement, who jam the parking lot a mile down the road at a donut shop. “By the time the cops finish their coffee and chocolate frosted donuts, we could be dead.”

In The Wake

15091509 views55 comments33 favs

Any form of exertion would defile what we are trying to do

To Cancer, with love...

15091509 views66 comments11 fav

Why do I love you? The monster that you are? I love you for revealing to me my strength My determination, my will My need to survive I love you for showing me the gift that is living

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 34

15091509 views55 comments22 favs

—Now that’s a hell-of-a-painting, Frank, he said. Those colors are engaged in warfare. How the hell did you do that?

My Belgian Waffle-Hound: Song

15091509 views44 comments33 favs

I was walking my Belgian Waffle-Hound Past the Belgian waffle shop I found a penny on the ground And did a tiny little hop I spun around and went inside The Belgian waffle shop And bought a little waffle For my Belgian Waffle-Hound

Worn

15091509 views44 comments33 favs

The shirts hanging by the back veranda serve as our memorial to them.

Mr. Pickle and Mr. Peet

15091509 views99 comments55 favs

We got a sandwich at Mr. Pickle's, but they cut the sandwich in the plastic. Plastic wrap.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

15091509 views1717 comments1010 favs

It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

No. Please, No . . .

15091509 views11 comment00 favs

["LIKE SAND THROUGH THE HOURGLASS ... SO ... ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES!"]

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 10

15091509 views33 comments44 favs

But the restaurants put pig in every little dish. You couldn't eat there without encountering some portion of pig. It was in everything, including the cabbage. Who puts pig in the cabbage? I'm asking you. And in the dumplings too. For God's sake, give it

ALL THE REPORTERS WANT WAR

15091509 views77 comments33 favs

The countdown is on and daily the propaganda gets more and more aggravating It appears at times that the news media dictate and orchestrate more that just report on events of diplomatic shock. A huge effort has gone in to covering this coming war and it…