Most read stories

God's Personal Microphones

14041404 views44 comments44 favs

This is my melody. I will not shut it down for you, it will do that all on its own. Everyone knows this. I don't need you to go on holiday. Can't really get away from yourself. This is my color guard. It goes with the everything I am. I'm not sorry I grew…

Mobiles

14041404 views88 comments88 favs

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

Conspiracy

14041404 views1313 comments99 favs

I was convinced that enemy bombers were on the way.

I Will Not Be That Woman

14041404 views66 comments66 favs

Not today. Even when the Isar rolls so cool and deep and I could wade and wade 'til sleep. Not today. When I have the tablets in a drawer in a box winking chalkily at me. Not today. When the church tower soars and it's bells toll out a seductive beat …

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

14041404 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…

Blind date

14041404 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…

Apathy.

14041404 views55 comments55 favs

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

annah la Javanese. Gauguin

14041404 views00 comments00 favs

Her feet are raised upon an embroidered green pillow and she sits naked in a blue velvet chair. Red earrings dangling from her ears, while a red monkey sits at her feet with one leg extended. She is exotic. A powder blue on her lips and at her navel,

reality concedes, for once

14041404 views55 comments66 favs

beckoning with citrus streaks blue cobbled streets/and stuccos lit with gold lamps guide strollers here/to Place du Forum in Arles and this café . . .

Inversions of Pound: Canto I

14031403 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

Sold 2 Books Though

14031403 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.

The Next Best Thing to Dying

14031403 views22 comments22 favs

Later, my daughter told me that she hadn't been scared because as I lay on the ground unconscious I continued to laugh, gradually relaxing into a big smile as I came around a minute later.

Sphynx Clara

14031403 views00 comments00 favs

A brick from the parapet splat down later as I was applying a bitter healing powder, made from the seeds of watermelons, to my raw tongue.

Three Facts

14031403 views1010 comments11 fav

These are the three facts of my life.

Xmas Letter 2015

14031403 views55 comments55 favs

Another year has flown, crashed to the ground, and convulsed to its death in a final match with the meaninglessness of existence. Decided to try my luck as a Walmart greeter this year but the apomorphine treatment made me break out in hives and I reacted…

Killing Dennis Gauda

14031403 views44 comments33 favs

I killed him. I know you probably don't believe me, but it was an accident. I'll bet everyone in this room knows Dennis Gauda.... or should I say knew him? He was District Governor a while back. He also won quite a few speech contests. Yes... he's competition,…

Books

14031403 views22 comments22 favs

'Like poems,’ I said she paused and nodded her black mop.

An Orb for a Better World

14031403 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…

Tiger Milk ( Part 3)

14031403 views11 comment11 fav

"Soviet Mandelstam rose like Christ from the Nightmare, Rises from the gulag, sunrise on the page."

Cranshaw Engages in Debate

14031403 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.

At the Brooks Brothers Hip Hop Summit

14031403 views00 comments00 favs

I pat my pocket to make sure everything’s in order; a Starbucks blueberry scone to sustain me, a $50 Brooks Brothers gift card from my in-laws, and my “piece”–a fully-charged BlackBerry handheld device.

Grannies

14031403 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…

Global Arms - 2

14031403 views22 comments33 favs

While serving in government, she plotted to change it.

Good Belongs to You

14031403 views22 comments11 fav

I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.2

14031403 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

14031403 views11 comment11 fav

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

Quarter-turn the Quaternion

14031403 views44 comments00 favs

One could count fifty moons hanging in the sky, in rows and columns of smaller skies.

The Dog's Familiar

14031403 views00 comments00 favs

The county sent two crews, one to get Mr. Meyers, the old shut-in, tall and affable, but quiet and bent, like a crooked coat rack with a porkpie atop, the other for his dog, an english setter whom he shadowed like a familiar. I say he was the familiar and

Jack

14031403 views44 comments00 favs

We’ve already agreed on a date when Jack posts some new pictures of himself. I have to swallow. Hard. In four days Jack’s become twenty years older! On Thursday, a boyish thirty-something was smiling at me from my PC. This Monday I find myself stari

The Bachelor's Hymnal

14031403 views33 comments33 favs

OhYou like quiet nights in?I do tooBut we might not get alongbecauseOnly part of youwants silence