Most read stories

The Bowery Scene (Memoir, 1981; edited by Charlotte Curtis)

15051505 views00 comments00 favs

It is easy to look out on the Bowery and say, "There are the bums." Encountering one, however, even one who asks to "bum a quarter" or tells you he's "on the bum" the word "bum" slips away in one's mind...

Last Night

15051505 views99 comments77 favs

If they are all speaking medicine & I / start speaking French - how / rude am I? Would they understand then / what it is to be entirely left out / of the conversation, unseen?

Sleeping Apes and Washing Dishes: What I Learned From Magazines This Week

15051505 views55 comments55 favs

Eat blueberries every day and you'll live to be a 92 year old mogul. Really.

The Bludgeoning of a Burgeoning Young Artist

15051505 views11 comment00 favs

There was an implicit understanding, made clear by Athena's gentle stroking of Freddy's silky blond hair, that he would share her canopy bed with its frilly fuchsia pillows. He didn't mind this, despite despising the color of the pillows.

Aftermath

15041504 views22 comments11 fav

Oh sweet, sweet morning light

To Whom It May Concern:

15041504 views00 comments00 favs

Now, we can argue about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but there is no doubt that it takes eight spritzes of Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, three spritzes of Lime-Away, and then a 30 second spray of Oust to incapacitat

In Search of Vince’s Quinces

15041504 views88 comments00 favs

Beautiful, he thinks, as he taps the ash of his cigarette over the balcony, but this is not good enough.

Time Change in Florida #2

15041504 views1111 comments1010 favs

Time Change in Florida #2 Sapped, yes. But not finished. Not yet.So what if I mostly live in my head?Who says I have to be out running aroundimproving body income outgo technical savvy? The dizzy awe of a Southwestern …

Mankind vs. The Undertaker

15041504 views66 comments33 favs

Her boyfriend is into U.S. presidents and professional wrestling. He is reading biographies of both occupations and says this helps him to appreciate gray area, decisive action. Lives of great men, he explains.

Mind-Body Split

15041504 views1515 comments1010 favs

The mirror can never talk back/ unless corrupted creases of the brain/ and its recombinant physical maladies// elect to answer...

Modern Teleology

15041504 views77 comments77 favs

little curly moustaches

Lullaby

15041504 views99 comments55 favs

I never meant to shipwreck you, I didn't even know I was singing out loud. I just stood on my rock a little too boldly, and hummed a tune you wanted to hear.

Secure

15041504 views99 comments77 favs

This is the Minuteman tine/ of the three-tined fork// we can stick into the modern world/ when it’s done-- a MAD triad.

The Mujahideen

15041504 views33 comments22 favs

Eighteen-year-old Svetlana Kabalevsky was now the widow of the poet Dmetri Kabalevsky, soon to be another widow-whore on the Moscow highway.

Go ahead

15041504 views99 comments00 favs

Sit right down in the chair. It's a glider, see? Smooth and easy movement without that annoying head-swing you get from a rocker. And easy to get out of, unlike a lounge chair. Relax. "Reba" reruns will be coming on in a minute.

Centuries of Falling

15041504 views88 comments66 favs

I am falling, falling out of my body, falling like midnight onto mice.

Prologue - On the Lips of Children

15041504 views22 comments11 fav

Their tongues were dry, her milk was gone, and the last bit of water in the plastic jug had evaporated.

Dream Boats

15041504 views22 comments22 favs

The Inauguration Day Windstorm had blown out half the downtown lights to celebrate its twenty-first birthday. Two old friends flecked with gray snow and white hair sat on the boulders that kept the Sound from sweeping away Myrtle Edwards Park. Look at all the…

Split second

15041504 views11 comment11 fav

When people talk about the end moments when one's life flashes before his or her eyes, they often refer to time as slowing down. I can attest to this phenomenon during my final moments, before the collision: the song playing on the radio, the squeal of tires and flash of…

Any migration is forced

15041504 views99 comments44 favs

I’m not / going to change you I /promise

Deus Ex Machina

15041504 views00 comments00 favs

He rolls in unbidden across the stubble fields / Old acquaintance astride a newly booming cloud/ Under sky an alien shade of strawberries whipped/ Her watch stops ticking out the rest of her/ scheduled breathing poses

Shadowland

15041504 views22 comments11 fav

His touch, even now, seemed to set off tremors inside her.

Because we cannot know

15041504 views99 comments66 favs

Because we cannot know, we keep walking, keep getting up each morning, feeding the cat, drinking coffee. Because we cannot know I'm drinking coffee that morning in Thailand, not on the beach but just off, because there is only one spot where you can get real coffee,…

The Cosmos as Gerunds

15041504 views1919 comments1111 favs

There is no there or where but rather/ trajectories of probability

In The Place Between - Part 2

15031503 views22 comments00 favs

One day a girl with blond hair was walking along the fence on the other side. There were just a handful of us left and I was the only one to notice her. I watched her. She did not see me. The next time I saw her, I went to the fence. I thought she might y

The Tamarack Swamps

15031503 views44 comments33 favs

Last night, in a tavern called Wits End, we dropped quarters into a console, sized and shaped like an old TV.

Husband Googles Travel Zoo

15031503 views1010 comments88 favs

When you need a vacation...from everything.

Building This Thing and That Wall

15031503 views66 comments66 favs

The world has long since been bootlegged by madmen. The new invisible con men are the same as the old visible con men, hiding and lying behind their walls of lingering death. There's a weapon wielding demon hell bent on an insane vengeance crawling around…

Sleeping Bag Whiskey

15031503 views11 comment22 favs

indelicate, as everything arrives at once.

WAR AND MUSIC AND VIDS TO GO WITH

15031503 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:…