Most read stories

WAR AND MUSIC AND VIDS TO GO WITH

14021402 views22 comments33 favs

I. Europa How else to begin but with Gustave Holst's Mars--the gods waging war in romantic twilight as drumbeats and cannons blast swathes in the gloaming and glory awaits in the halls of black smoke. A visual perhaps:…

An Orb for a Better World

14021402 views11 comment11 fav

Max sighed. Solving for x was boring, so mind numbingly boring that he didn't notice the flickering blue light hovering in his room. It crackled and popped, growing until a shimmering rectangle stretched from floor to ceiling.A hand pushed out from the rectangle, and a…

Cranshaw Engages in Debate

14021402 views1515 comments99 favs

They were discussing reincarnation, what animals they would come back as. "I'd be a vole," Cranshaw said. Is a vole even an animal? Connie asked.

Capital Offense

14021402 views88 comments99 favs

They can’t exterminate the poor just yet

1740: My 7th Great-grandfather

14021402 views88 comments99 favs

a half-moon hung straight up and down

Global Arms - 2

14021402 views22 comments33 favs

While serving in government, she plotted to change it.

What my daughter knows I know or some likely version

14021402 views66 comments55 favs

He doesn't call, not even on her birthday. She doesn't mention it or complain. She knows she doesn't have it as bad as some, even in this privileged Triangle of North Carolina. She is white and pretty and belongs to what's left of the middle…

Great Books of the Western Bedroom

14021402 views33 comments22 favs

Artie Shaw gave Ava Gardner a reading list in preparation for their honeymoon that included The Brothers Karamazov, The Origin of the Species, Das Kapital and The Magic Mountain.

Blind date

14021402 views11 comment00 favs

“I'll have the Ribeye cooked medium rare,” says Bill, who looks over at Julia, blonde hair and disarming smile, and he thinks that she's not bad for a blind date. He doesn't like the way she butters her roll, however, and it agitates him that she spreads…

Freedom

14021402 views77 comments77 favs

She tossed the big bird into the air. It wobbled, then flew away.

The Green Eyed Lady in the Glass Café

14021402 views88 comments44 favs

Is this sought sea dream of the Arctic fox? The green below the circles of the white, above her eyes? On Formica tables where the woman smocks beneath glass borders of their vacant smiles, they pass by windows formulating styles,…

Our Last Night at the Nunnery Motel 2.0 in Milano

14011401 views99 comments66 favs

They make you work For your pizza in Italy You have to slice it yourself While wearing a gas mask To ward off the cigarette smoke From every neighboring table While chasing away the Mosquitos and the pigeons The flies and the gypsy r

Sold 2 Books Though

14011401 views88 comments77 favs

Reading at Menlo Park Senior Center, old people falling asleep leaning to the left in their chairs, all in the same direction.

I Am Not Like All The Rest: Funny Lines From Online Dating Profiles

14011401 views1010 comments99 favs

After becoming single at age 62, I joined an online dating site. After a year of perusing profiles and meeting men for coffee, staying single is starting to look better and better to me. But I've stayed on the site, in part for the pure enjoyment of…

The Hunger of the Waxing Moon

14011401 views11 comment11 fav

I took advantage of a free period this afternoon to nap. When I awoke, I tasted blood. My tongue was swollen. I checked myself in the mirror and saw twin punctures on my lower lip with pinpricks of blood on each. I winked at my reflection and lifted my li

The Girl I Danced With Is Now A Man

14011401 views44 comments11 fav

You can't always be everything you were expected to be

The After-Sex Song

14011401 views66 comments22 favs

After sex he would get on his old refurbished upright piano and always play that same song. We came to know it as the After-Sex Song. It was really quite lovely, and touching. I think it made us all feel better around that building. Yeah, I remember t

Music That Tastes Like Blood

14011401 views11 comment00 favs

It is your music that makes me want to crack open my ribcage and rip out my heart as it still beats, to cauterize my carotids, and shove the mechanical insides of a clock into my thoracic cavity.

Sunbelt Winter Sketches

14011401 views88 comments88 favs

Sunlight and the small wind/ swallow the frost/ on rooftops and windshields

Grannies

14011401 views66 comments66 favs

The four Grannies say, “GO!” and leap from the window. King's pickup is below, and he has lined the bed with his mother's throw pillows. Sundresses fly. Blue plastic diapers billow. They want cigarettes. I light their smokes with King's pearl-handled lighter as…

Divers

14011401 views88 comments66 favs

and, once in a rare while,/ actual pearls.

Mobiles

14011401 views88 comments88 favs

My stories are ramshackle; they lurch along in old sweaters with holes and missing buttons, drinking from mismatched cups and saucers.

As the Bat Cave Turns

14011401 views55 comments44 favs

A study found that in bat species noted for female monogamy male bats have small testes and big brains, while in species noted for female promiscuity males have testicles five times as big, but smaller brains.

GENESIS

14011401 views00 comments00 favs

And God said unto the oil can: “Thou art cursed above the cattle, and above every beast of the field. And deep the ground shalt thou go.” “Mother,” said the oil can, “fucker!”

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.2

14011401 views00 comments00 favs

Mayumi approached them; her memories of their faces from the texts they received from each other had come alive.

Untitled Haiku from Japanese Game Show by JANEY SMITH

14011401 views11 comment11 fav

It's a haiku. It's its own snippet.

Apathy.

14011401 views55 comments55 favs

I'm not sure whetherI drink to numbthe pain or toactually feelsomething.

This Old Man

14011401 views22 comments00 favs

“Have I told you this one before?” I can’t think of one he hasn’t told me, but saying so won’t stop him. I fire up the FreeCell game, put the phone on speaker, and pour a tumbler of chardonnay.

Inversions of Pound: Canto I

14001400 views77 comments44 favs

these tender girls tears recent / with stained souls, brides of dead, / cadaverous Erebus; unguarded ladder / long the down going…came Anticlea then

Ghoster

14001400 views77 comments66 favs

Ross, I've been a ghost hunter for almost 10 years now and this is a place I said I WOULD NEVER NEVER EVER go to!