Most read stories

The Tourists at the Museum

12351235 views33 comments22 favs

For the camera she smiles otherwise not and only when she is standing beside him But for the camera? for the crowd for posterity yes For their children for the future? yes, again yes a thousand times until her face be

The Magic Trumpet

12351235 views22 comments22 favs

I gave my trumpet case to a girl named Sophie; she liked the velvet inside.She still played with dolls;they would live there,in the dark away from the world.Safe. I was a terrible trumpeter;i missed the high notes in band, squawked like a chicken.I strapped the trumpeton my…

People of Walmart

12351235 views77 comments66 favs

You look at me with that contemptuous smirk while I'm here in Walmart dressed in sweats and house slippers, sloppy, a bit fat, trying to figure out which electric toothbrush to buy.

Yet More from The Chronicles of His Demise

12351235 views1616 comments88 favs

The Muse//has used/ me up

The Roses Ask For You

12351235 views55 comments11 fav

The roses ask for you when I smell them They seem to remember your touch more than others. They can’t bear it when you’re gone and wonder when you’ll be returning I am beginning to do the same I no longer go outdoors to be with them

My Hillbilly's Got a Hole In It

12341234 views44 comments33 favs

My hillbilly’s got a hole in it And I think I’m gonna die I swear you can see right through him Got a big hole in his side I think I pulled the trigger On the truth gun at my side Then it just got bigger It started getting wide He tried

Bright Red

12341234 views22 comments00 favs

They shoveled coal into the furnace of the city so the ghosts would be warm for their haunting.

Ave Maria: Part 6

12341234 views00 comments00 favs

“I swear that man is a force of nature.” This was her mother's way of describing her father whenever her mother came too close to the precipice. While growing up, she could never allow herself to fully acknowledge the meaning behind her mother's…

Where Does Love Come?

12341234 views11 comment11 fav

He was rummaging through his giant pile of clothing on the floor, looking for something to wear to sleep. When he couldn't quite tell what was dirty and what was clean, he knew it was time for laundry. Just as he was going to…

My First Horror Show

12341234 views00 comments00 favs

I remember screaming and wanting to run from the living room that time you came home drunk.

Linda Vs. Sound

12341234 views00 comments00 favs

Normally, after her shift, Linda would make herself a latte, untie her apron, and study at one of the tables. That evening, however, KEXP kept playing songs with grating guitar riffs, and loud laughers were everywhere. She chugged her coffee, burning her tongue. Then, she…

The Polish Worker

12341234 views44 comments11 fav

... and that’s the story of the Polish worker who looks like van Gogh.

Lady Gaga Via Richard Cory

12341234 views00 comments00 favs

Whenever Lady Gaga took the stage, We peons on the benches cheered for her: She dripped of jewels and paint, and blessed sage, Wore meat as the antithesis to fur.

Famus Peepul

12341234 views00 comments00 favs

Famus Peepul Ellen and her boy, Larson, were on the second floor of The Monsters restaurant, searching for the fortuneteller. Larson had decided her signature was a necessary addition to his autograph book. He hadn't asked for her autograph…

A Cool Dry Place PART 1

12341234 views44 comments11 fav

There are times when she is heavy and times when she is light.

Worth a Thousand Words

12331233 views11 comment00 favs

He was triply satisfied: he’d come twice and he was a damn good-looking man.

Mother's Day

12331233 views44 comments22 favs

By lunch: The dryer is an F-5 dervish of mismatched socks, blue jeans and your yellowing college T's, lovingly held onto. For a moment there is a comforting warmth and softness to their smell. In the debris strewn landscape of the living room a carcass

An Apricot the Size of a Heart

12331233 views77 comments55 favs

I dreamt, said the Donkey, of an apricot. An apricot the size of a heart. …

My Back Hurts

12331233 views11 comment11 fav

There’s a room Full of white And it smells Like bleach and Iron

Dear Earth, On the Occasion of Your 40th Earth Day Birthday

12331233 views22 comments11 fav

Everyone is tromping around in work boots like an army of happy gardeners. The park is smiling from all this attention, from the sound of kids who think work is play. It's not even sunny but we don't mind. I know you don't. Grey days are just as good. They've…

Exhumation

12331233 views1010 comments55 favs

the poems/ we never got to will remain,

Noir vs. Noir

12331233 views66 comments55 favs

You're sitting in a darkened theatre with Gothic ceilings and one exit watching the latest Alan Ladd film with William Bendix and Veronica Lake.

Tea Time Story

12331233 views11 comment00 favs

She smiled at him. "You want to know the secret, that's why you want her to tell - not because you want her to be happy."

Brief excerpt from the Fantasy thing I'm writing.

12331233 views33 comments11 fav

Lucien Lucien Tidesquall lay almost sleeping amid the soft green grass. His eyes irradiated green midnight under vanquished brows. A plover hovered somewhere in the distance. It reminded him of a poem he had written as a teenager, a haiku that went as…

Pink

12331233 views33 comments00 favs

Frank cut the tip of his finger off and it sort of shot over to the lettuce bin. The blood pumped out in tiny jets as he covered it with the palm of his other hand and ran to the sink. He pointed it in the sink and turned the water on, he could see…

60 is the new 20

12331233 views00 comments22 favs

I once saw a TV commercial that showed a group of Anglo retirees laughing around a card table. The slogan 60 is the new 20 floated beneath their fat, fun-loving heads. My parents are bona fide Baby Boomers. Their lives are build on credit and catchy…

intensely interested (but repressing it)

12331233 views33 comments11 fav

whenever i see youit feels like birds are flyingin and out of my facemy head is ghost-like and birds flythrough iti want to hold the birds insidemy head and turn them intosex maniacs

Politics

12331233 views88 comments44 favs

These days, you seem to disappear like bread tasted and devoured

We Are Not Alone

12331233 views22 comments22 favs

The bank bought out the miles of land behind our property.

An Uneventful Night in an Italian Hospital

12331233 views66 comments44 favs

The voice is back! That voice, like milk and honey, like mother, like the school nurse who bandaged my scraped knee.