Most read stories

A Poem for Chris Toll

13361336 views11 comment11 fav

we all die from the bottom up

Stones

13361336 views55 comments22 favs

The manicured lawn rolls down either side of the knoll, punctuated with flat granite plaques, the occasional bouquet of cut flowers, a smattering of faded eight-inch American flags.

All his things

13361336 views1010 comments1212 favs

All the things that are his.

A Song To Lose Your Shoes To

13361336 views33 comments00 favs

You’ve got me standin’ on my knees, A’searchin’ for a beggar’s alms, From folks who’re deaf to all my pleas And blind to open palms.

Easy Lessons

13361336 views11 comment11 fav

A hinge in my heart is broken.

cross-quarter days

13351335 views1515 comments1111 favs

sentinels in a frost-blackened field

Where's Waldo?

13351335 views99 comments88 favs

Over his usual ham sandwich and skim milk for lunch Uncle Waldo used to always say, “Going out in the dead of night without a flashlight is dangerous.” But I knew what I was doing. After dark, I'd slip out and sneaker on down the path to take a dip in a…

Put Your Trust in God

13351335 views33 comments00 favs

God is my stomach.

Tomcat

13351335 views33 comments22 favs

And, if you look real close, you see there’s a bullet hole next to his left ear. A stray one went past his head and straight through Santa’s heart.

The Perfect Command

13351335 views22 comments11 fav

He stood in front of her. They stood eye to eye. "You aren't supposed to look me in the eye. If I were anyone else you would be smacked down on the ground right now. Treat me as you would a lover, your master."

There is a Certain Long Armed Bird I See

13351335 views66 comments44 favs

from here with its brightly polished fingers spread easily amongst the cresting winds off the choppysky, circling the sun and sea splattered cliffs like a lone marble rolling down a smoothed out incline only to be turned invisibly over again as if…

Hollywood Forever

13351335 views55 comments44 favs

Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone crack open an Old Bushmill’s and offer John Huston a pull.

Then You May Have Complicated Grief...

13351335 views22 comments11 fav

......Based on an ad I heard on the radio from Mass. General Hospital in BostonHave you ever experienced death?Have you been in grief,past the cut off periodof six months?Has it affected your life?Has it strained relations with your wife?It is our beliefthat you…

The Judge's Wife Part 6

13351335 views44 comments33 favs

—Strip down to your shorts. Put on this gown, open to the rear.

Broken Night

13351335 views00 comments00 favs

Could I really seduce and rob a total stranger -- just on a dare?

Five Million Yen: Chapter 48

13341334 views44 comments11 fav

Ben was not a happy musician.

Teeth - Yet Another Obsession

13341334 views00 comments00 favs

The teeth I want must hold significance. Like the quote, “it’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey,” for me, it’s the connection that I’ve had with someone and the story behind the lost tooth that interests me.

Ways of Making Love

13341334 views11 comment00 favs

the honesty of bodies & the lies hidden under skin.

The Suicider (draft)

13341334 views00 comments00 favs

He woke up four hours later in his car in his garage with the worst headache of his life. He lurched out of the car and kicked over a basket of basil as he toddled towards the door to the house. He stopped and scooped the spilled basil back into the baske

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 32

13341334 views55 comments44 favs

—You know, Angelique, said Elaine Aster, dabbing her lips with a napkin, I’ve opened a new gallery in Paris.

Secrets

13341334 views66 comments22 favs

She buried her secrets in a bowl of brownie mix....

Digging

13341334 views22 comments11 fav

I came to a field where, scattered around, were quite a few men digging holes

Mobiles

13341334 views88 comments88 favs

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

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas

13341334 views55 comments55 favs

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

trixie

13341334 views99 comments77 favs

she had a chipped tooth...

I Will Not Be That Woman

13341334 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 …

A Record of Wrongs

13341334 views55 comments11 fav

A dead deer on the side of the road and the older boys not listening to her as they stab its eye with a stick.

Mom at Night

13341334 views66 comments22 favs

Mom stayed up all night again Tending to her papers Pushing them around Trying to make order of the debts, the dreams and the obligations She couldn't get the columns to add up, So she shuffled them around some more and Rearranged the piles …

The Family Tradition

13341334 views00 comments00 favs

Your father, his father, and his before that, your mother, her mother, and all the way back have kept a tradition by chance or by will to each have a baby (or several) until…

Exordium

13341334 views00 comments11 fav

Overhead cranes balance ordinance from one end of the palatial enclosure to the other. There are robots, high-voltage, force-fields…more than a hundred ways someone could get hurt. I looked back again…She was gone.