Most read stories

Rattlesnake Pancakes

25302530 views2424 comments2020 favs

I don't usually take bets, / but I took this one.

Shiny

25302530 views1212 comments88 favs

I'm slim, baby, caramelized as a Slo-Poke buried in the fatty acids of some old dog's guts. The way they creep, frantic with finesse, free, locking their eyes in the dental mirror. It's wrong, maybe, but who'd dare to declaw them? Look at it from their angle, the one that…

Jack Kerouac, Republican Party Hero

25292529 views22 comments11 fav

Mr. Kerouac is the author of On the Road, Big Sur, and numerous other works that defined the Beat Generation, and he's the foremost drunken writer of his time to embrace conservatism.

KADDISH

25292529 views2525 comments1919 favs

My mother was a child of the death camps, passed her adolescence there. Survived.

December 1999

25292529 views1010 comments1010 favs

... and you can’t balance your checkbook or divide a three-way bill in a restaurant but you can still recite all the sixteen ways of SHAUN CASSIDY TELLS: 16 WAYS TO TURN ME ON!

Keisha

25282528 views2929 comments2020 favs

Keisha was the name she gave us. She said she had no father and no last name. We wrote her down as Keisha B. We already had a Keisha A. She was about twelve though she told us fourteen. Her eyes were older than we dared think. We knew her mother had been murdered and that's…

Bird In the House

25282528 views77 comments22 favs

"Because of the way our society is structured, a lot of people have to climb hard to get to anywhere reasonable in their lives, losing fingernails and a sense of dignity on the way up."

How to Travel with your Demons (1)

25272527 views88 comments66 favs

Someone's shaking powdered sugar on the tree limbs. Someone's turned out the lights. It's a beautiful morning.

Two of a Kind

25262526 views44 comments22 favs

What was it about women that made them know these kinds of things about one another, about people, the way they came together, the future? Crater thought back to Dresden, the exchange student from Holland. She knew things like that.

Going Bananas

25242524 views2525 comments1414 favs

I haven’t made the headlines yet. Maybe I never will. In a city like this, it probably takes more than this to get the helicopters in the air.

Polly

25232523 views88 comments66 favs

I taught Polly to turn on a flashlight with his nose. It became his favorite occupation and he'd sit for hours with the light between his paws, watching the things it lit—sometimes jumping up to lick the wall. He'd shine it on our daughter's…

Bandits in the Afternoon Rain

25232523 views1010 comments00 favs

Somewhere there are fires burning in oil barrels, ragged homeless men warming torn-mittened hands―one day I'll be with them.

Europe

25222522 views2020 comments2222 favs

On the way over, on the ship, I met a girl from Cleveland.

Edie Sedgwick #7: A Horse with No Name

25222522 views1313 comments66 favs

she's greeting everyone like she's the new fucking Queen of England with her size Z tits, the sequined gown clinging to her overstuffed figure like a mold she'll have to live with,

A Simple Explanation

25222522 views3636 comments1212 favs

You are just another and I am only me. I give you full permission to be everything I don’t want you to be. In fact, I insist.

Baby Carrot

25212521 views1010 comments55 favs

In my choppings, I come across a tiny carrot amidst the baby carrots. The runt if you will.

Bland, weak, spoiled, slaughtered

25202520 views33 comments77 favs

Their wedding gift to us was a night out with them and tonight was the night. But, you see, Rali and Kate had so much more to offer us than we could ever think to register for. They were giving us an exclusive guide on how to live as an up and coming coup

Sermon of Lilac

25192519 views2323 comments2121 favs

The night was a lilac bowl of darkness

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

25182518 views2222 comments1212 favs

Then it got quiet again, the kind of quiet that fills a car even with the radio on and the highway ticking away and the corn flying past regimented and silk tasseled.

The Boundary Line

25182518 views22 comments22 favs

These things were indeed the wealth of our respective nations.

Arabic

25172517 views2626 comments1717 favs

I would see her at the gym in the mornings.

No One Will Ever Give You This Poem

25162516 views2222 comments1616 favs

and say did you know it was written just for you? But I will. No one will walk up to you on the busy street one day and say did you know he loved you this much? But I'm telling you now. What good would a pyramid be or a hanging garden or a starry…

Elephantine

25162516 views88 comments33 favs

After like forever I remembered Seth was there, too. He was still on the levee's edge, but had drawn his legs up and crossed them, Indian-style. All of a sudden he was laughing.

The Fountain

25162516 views66 comments44 favs

The man looked at him for a moment, as if he didn’t understand him, “Mr. Wallace, you have a genuine miracle in your bathroom. This isn’t something that just wraps up.”

Flossie’s Bordello and Bar-B-Q Shack

25162516 views22 comments00 favs

The women of Bixby, Texas, united in their frustration and general thirst for arson, cheered as Flossie’s Bordello and Bar-B-Q Shack burned to the ground.

The Imprint of Necessity

25152515 views55 comments33 favs

I’ll tell you what I think, I think Their hopes of a brush with love Is what keeps the simple cricket Awake all night If you find a baby cricket on its back Fallen on the sidewalk Struggling with its legs In the air Help it to its fee

Polyester Purgatory

25142514 views1919 comments99 favs

They line the bar beside me. Talking about themselves and estranged children, while rubbing necks and wrists, searching for the pulse.

A Felinist Critique of Macbeth

25132513 views66 comments22 favs

Lady Macbeth goes around moaning “out, out damned spot,” when a well-placed lick would have solved the problem immediately, with no unnecessary and heavy-handed dialogue. Once again, clumsy work.

Putting the Fun in Funeral

25132513 views00 comments00 favs

The funeral was a blast. One helluva time. We all had the time of our lives. Well, all of us except Dominic. It pissed me off that Dominic didn’t have fun. After all, he was the center of attention. The whole day was about him, and we spared no expense

Garden Goddess for Hire

25122512 views00 comments00 favs

A five-star, world famous hotel nearby even had a new fence put around it recently, to keep out the riff-raff. That would include me. The hired help. A gardener.