Most read stories

Taking it Easy

12631263 views22 comments22 favs

At the Winslow Funeral Home in Winslow, Arizona, just like in the Eagles’ 70s song “Take It Easy,” only I’m not taking it easy.

wintering

12631263 views22 comments22 favs

a name is what you are, and a name is a wall between. one day let me be earth, so you may be allowed to say you love me. for now i am separate. i'm afraid that's how i will die, and …

Last Night

12631263 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?

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 14

12631263 views44 comments22 favs

Frank left Michiko’s building and walked into Central Park.

Crumpled

12631263 views77 comments66 favs

We wanted so much to find ourselves in a beautiful world. It was, and is, but every inviting leaf has got another hidden dangerous precedent that must be surrendered to in order to survive to see another sunset with the ones you actually…

All Wet

12631263 views22 comments22 favs

the small break of consciousness that is my dreamswaterso much wateri can never forgive the watertoo many tears

Be Afraid

12631263 views77 comments55 favs

Everything conspires to kill you:

TBT

12631263 views1111 comments1010 favs

Back then we used to dance slowly to Sam Cooke's “You Send Me” on your parquet floors, whispering about planting our vegetable garden, planning to seed the lawn with centipede grass, promising to count all the red cars that came down the street.

Hooves on the Sand

12621262 views00 comments00 favs

It was a bright day in April, the cruelest month, and the gears and pumps of the train beat on into the still air.

Endless

12621262 views44 comments11 fav

Endless. I find this story.Beginning. To walk.Repeating. Repeating.The Memory. Of snow.Amsterdam. Rivers narrow.Hearts. Divide.Hands. Emboldened.Patronizing. Unpatriotic.Semblance. House held open.Forging. The ties…

The $275 Root Beer Float

12621262 views66 comments00 favs

That was some root beer float. It cost us a grand total of $275. She pulls up in front of Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor and leaves the motor running while I jump out and run into the parlor. It was early evening. We HAD to have a root beer float. You

Path

12621262 views55 comments11 fav

a man sees salamander bands / a-cracklin on the scree

On an Iceberg of Words

12621262 views88 comments66 favs

She cut me adrift On an iceberg of words And words melt As you know Looks like we may have Gone out on the limb A little too far without A toe-hold on Reality Doesn’t it? But I saw the headlines: Cows Bound for Slaughterhouse Make

Menelaus Supporting Patroclus

12621262 views55 comments22 favs

He remembers, he touches, he lifts and kisses the mouth.

If Only it Were So

12621262 views88 comments44 favs

In the moment I crinkle the aluminum foil, The sandwich now a deeper Part of me

leave the dog, take the cannoli

12621262 views1818 comments88 favs

he who laughs last is probably a dumbass fuck

Friday Out

12621262 views11 comment33 favs

Seeing her in black / with his arm around her / from the other side / of a glass door. / He gave her a beer. / She might’ve been thirsty, / uncomfortable.

our last time

12621262 views22 comments00 favs

If you had gotten pregnant our last time, in 1967 (when you lied and told me “I guess I’m finally over you,”) then our son could have been that man you saw with the drooping moustache and his coattails flying in the lobby of the building in Louisville,

It's not heavenly light, b!*&#.

12621262 views55 comments44 favs

He stopped believing in God when he learned how balls worked. Spermatocytes turned into spermatids and spermatids turned into spermatozoa, the transition taking place in tiny loop de loops called the seminiferous tubules which contain at least three…

Suicide Consulting Hotline

12621262 views77 comments66 favs

We exist to facilitate/ successful conclusions of hopeless lives.

Actually I Train Woodpeckers for Al-Qaeda

12621262 views55 comments11 fav

Now that Spring has sprung I am reminded about the day a former neighbour complained about my squirrel collection. I love to feed the black squirrels that gather in my yard and she became convinced I had trained several ninja squirrels to enter her garden

my apartment needs more culture

12621262 views00 comments00 favs

the first night we visited/ i stepped on a splinter/ while walking to the car/ and half-limped back,/ hiding a wince.

Announcing Human Season

12621262 views1010 comments44 favs

Contest rules are simple. Two teams of five hunters each are established by drawing from pools of interested volunteers and selected prison inmates confined for capital crimes and illegal immigration.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

12621262 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…

Up & Down Stairs

12621262 views44 comments44 favs

Nature has patience.

Manifesto of ism

12621262 views22 comments22 favs

We walk though the streets of London, New York, Paris, Prague, Barcelona, Skegness, inhaling air heavy with metaphors, eyes set alight by the microscopic pyrotechnics of quotidian symbols hitherto debased by the outmoded conventions of a bankrupt civilisation decomposing in…

Kash Mire

12621262 views44 comments33 favs

You watch with frigid eyes, as their soggy woolens squelch dark mud, even smiling a little as they make croaking frog-lure noises. You know eventually a toad or two would land in the Frogger. You like the word Frogger.

The Phosphorescent French Fry

12611261 views00 comments00 favs

She's speaking again, this time in whispers. Her head is shrinking in on itself. If there is a way to save her I'm not aware of it.

three gretchens

12611261 views22 comments00 favs

The story of a second, a stone, and an android -- all curiously interrelated and all, coincidentally, named Gretchen

Snowbound

12611261 views22 comments11 fav

Shut up.You shut up.That's disgusting.You should talk.Fuck off.Fuck me.whore.Yes.More.Shut up.