Most read stories

Losses

12551255 views1818 comments99 favs

Each day, I lose more words-/ nouns and verbs- but especially// proper names. People and places

Hooves on the Sand

12541254 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.

three gretchens

12541254 views22 comments00 favs

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

On an Iceberg of Words

12541254 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

The Palace of Nansi

12541254 views22 comments00 favs

It's advertised as a romance. The poster shows a Sudanese woman with a child at her side collecting gum from Acacia trees.

The Conversion

12541254 views11 comment00 favs

She became suited to herself only. She no longer tried in any way to fit, she fought the molds they created and kept moving in her own direction. Often forward, sometimes a bit backward, and she rightly scaled her own Mt. Olympus and there she sat with he

washing in the dawn

12541254 views22 comments11 fav

Here and there a few bits of beauty, with the highest respect, reverence, erect with pride. Almost twice a thousand dawns, ten thousand in intimacy, the breasts, the nipples, means of the world to nourish itself, by the intimate bay. It's almost pun

Matchbox Car

12541254 views22 comments00 favs

Clatters and clatters ensued, and the splash destroyed all denial.

Puffer Fish in the Infinite Laboratory

12541254 views22 comments11 fav

They put me in charge of developing a drug that stifles fear.

I Liquidate My Assets

12541254 views55 comments55 favs

My businessman does as his nature allows him. He is so cute. All day long he makes deals. He is on his phone most of the time. He raises his voice. “Fuck those fuckers, just do it,” is what he says. My businessman hedges risk on his investments by keeping…

Lullaby for a Dragon Baby (for Josephina TuTu Waring)

12541254 views77 comments33 favs

Lullaby for a dragon baby who breaks the bough with bottled fists escapes the armored cradle stealing swords from terra cotta men to slash the Ming canopy and loose the butterflies that will free Ho Chi Minh from the fire.

A Sight Worth Keeping in View

12541254 views11 comment11 fav

. . . I wanted to put Tiffany out of her misery and mine and shove her in front of the next large vehicle hurtling down the drive-through lane . . . .

Braque's Diary of the Atelier Cut-Outs

12541254 views44 comments33 favs

Today, the buxom neighbor carrying blintzes Egged me not to care about What’s not flat. She forgot To bend, clanging together Some fronts and sides.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

12541254 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…

Incivility for Breakfast

12541254 views44 comments11 fav

I gently honked my horn and gave her the kind of friendly neighbor wave that only friendly neighbors can give. She didn’t wave back. What the hell is her problem?

A Study in Plastics

12541254 views55 comments00 favs

She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

The Lioness For Real

12541254 views44 comments22 favs

you happen to me like motorcycle tricks

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 14

12541254 views44 comments22 favs

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

Goody Two-Shoes

12541254 views66 comments55 favs

She locked herself in the bathroom on our wedding night. That was my first clue that I had made a mistake.

Third Shift

12531253 views44 comments22 favs

Some great, doubtless precious; some hollow, likely empty; some only shards, but you never know...

If Only it Were So

12531253 views88 comments44 favs

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

Two

12531253 views66 comments44 favs

i am two / one part me / another part them

leave the dog, take the cannoli

12531253 views1818 comments88 favs

he who laughs last is probably a dumbass fuck

In Real Life

12531253 views22 comments00 favs

I’m starting to feel more interested in my savings account.

Swan Song of the Pareto Optimalists

12531253 views33 comments33 favs

I nearly burst out laughing when I heard myself telling him in my accented English that she’d confided in me that she was preparing to sacrifice herself as part of an elaborate snuff film produced by a band of psychotic artists hell-bent on making up for

Every Time It Happens

12531253 views11 comment22 favs

Every time it happens, I think of Amber Heard and how hard you can be slapped without a bruise forming.

Morning Train

12531253 views11 comment11 fav

..Sheena's not there to make my morning coffee and the brain cells I feel slowly dying are not expiring because of bad Aussie pop songs.

Freakuccino

12531253 views77 comments22 favs

The bus was almost empty, just me and an Asian girl who'd cleaned up some since I'd seen her. She was wearing a too-big T-shirt that said Freakuccino and writing in a notebook. If she remembered me she didn't say so I didn't either. Everybody sheds some…

Grandfather Clock

12531253 views11 comment11 fav

On a cold November afternoon I stood in the foyer of Sampson and Sons funeral home and paced silently back and forth across the purple carpet. They have that deep pile and rich color of carpeting that you only really see in a small town…

WHO'S RICH?

12531253 views00 comments00 favs

she flips you a smile and a white plastic menu, and all the blood in your head, and upper body rushes to your crouch, and god-all- mighty, space aliens from the planet Vanna White could be landing in their unnumbered hoards in the parking lot, and all