Most read stories

Here is the thing. No one knows what it (actually) represents

11741174 views33 comments22 favs

beyond knowing that when it hits you, you've been very much run over, and flattened like a stack of cardboard pancakes. I've seen it all before, and it works all right I guess. But my oh my, my, my oh thank you Jesus, to…

when-one-of-your-two-divorcing-dearest-friends-says-Choose-it-turns-out-both-is-not-an-option

11731173 views66 comments55 favs

fallout

The Devil’s Troubadour

11731173 views00 comments11 fav

The Devil’s laugh was the screech of wind. Ignacio Carillo heard Him as he dug the grave that would hold the body of his beloved wife.

When the Moon Becomes the Sun

11731173 views66 comments33 favs

While most spread their time in other occupation, I traveled through books and grew my imagination. I knew endless bliss. I was a book eater. I would just devour books that I loved and slug through those I didn't, just to make myself eat the truths and li

Born Lucky

11731173 views33 comments11 fav

He's gonna find he wasn't born lucky after all, his propaganda has got up on the wrong side of the bed and sidled onto the couch.

Driving Through Mississippi Wearing a Chin Beard in 1964

11731173 views22 comments00 favs

Ah, the nerve of hot-blooded youth! But the drinking age was only 18 in New Orleans, and we couldn’t resist the call of all that legalized drinking (even though I had fake I.D’s my roommate at Urbana had given me.) You and I had already consecrated

Beaten

11731173 views44 comments22 favs

I was sitting there drinking with Paul at the bar, and it was a Friday night and I was I was feelin good. I didn't have to go to work in the morning, and I had a few drinks and food in me, and I able to that on da cheap, which felt good. And Paul…

Starlight

11731173 views44 comments00 favs

I've been chasing something that cannot be caught.

Rags to Riches to Rags, 1

11731173 views11 comment11 fav

1 Al Capone was ruling the backstreets and alleyways of Chicago during Prohibition, and we lived in a little house right next door to a speak-easy. I could peak through our curtains and see right into the bar next door when cops came in to get pai

glass

11731173 views22 comments22 favs

She laughs and licks it.

A Losing Hand

11731173 views44 comments00 favs

A group of us from work are playing cards at a friend's house, so when my brother Jimmy calls, I take my phone into the other room. I already know what it's about, really the only reason he ever calls these days.“Look, I hate to ask,” he begins, the way he…

Taking it Easy

11731173 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.

Stan Smith

11731173 views88 comments55 favs

Ah we just sat on the flat roof of the school and looked out at what was beyond because sometimes there is nothin' to do but sit on a flat roof of a school and look out at what is beyond. Going up there I had told him to be careful with the bag because if he didn't take…

a different kind of poetry slam

11731173 views66 comments11 fav

removing oneself sometimes occurs only on the page

a grey green enamel vase in the rain

11731173 views22 comments22 favs

we hover black as carrion birds with a glut empty need seems to me she's fell as thee and knows exactly where we posture anxiously spitting falsehoods on cue twittering like snipes cause there's nothing left to do she might have spent her whole life just

Ponies

11731173 views33 comments11 fav

“The moon is a monk,” you said.

Frankenstein's Monster Eats the Brains of Virgins at the Witches' Chainsaw Orgy Massacre

11731173 views55 comments22 favs

If Heaven holds forth its own Infinity, What of selves, of ours, could we stand to see? Cradled with harsh fangs of Memory, Deep forgetfulness, give rather me- Let bright dreams be our self's divinity: Forever holds, in morrow's hours, such little…

Elementary

11721172 views11 comment00 favs

He, an irregular chap, Was known for his hat with a flap. Had fleet feet and a very strong back.

Deadheading

11721172 views44 comments11 fav

The cicadas hissed and chirruped until the air was thick with a noise like mechanical bedsprings bouncing for the 4th of July.

The Legend of Knifemouth’s Legendary Mouth Grows

11721172 views22 comments22 favs

In the small towns of central and southern Illinois there lives a very indecent sort of man.

Fragment from an Unwritten Diary

11721172 views66 comments44 favs

It's not stories the quiet lack, but inclination...

Full Moon

11721172 views00 comments00 favs

Creatures of the dark don’t follow daylight savings

hands

11721172 views22 comments22 favs

He cleaned off the pump with a steel brush. Then he took it out to the pressure washer. Out there was where a lady that looked like a witch used to move around and sit on the fences like a crow. The air was humid, and the men were dressed in heavy blue coveralls.…

Thank God for Kids — by Comparison, I'M 'Adult'!

11721172 views00 comments00 favs

[NOTE: PLEASE DEFER READING THIS UNTIL YOU'VE COMPLETED THE 'MONAD' (OR 'MILESTONE') YOU'VE NEEDED TO! THANKS! BE FOREWARNED!]

Coffee Alone

11721172 views66 comments66 favs

And pity us, this generation of sighing:

Three : Sixteen

11721172 views55 comments44 favs

We are a city of overworked workers.

DENSITY

11721172 views33 comments00 favs

There were more of us before, laying in a puddle cuddling on the floor with heads tucked into the crooks of arms where light scattered their crowns in the morning and no machine exists for me to use trying to find that morning again. Carl could go off the side of the…

When Will the Poetic Violence End?

11721172 views44 comments11 fav

Some corners of the world seem to be consigned to an eternal hell of never-ending strife. The Middle East; Northern Ireland; the faculty lounge at Oxford University.

Milky Way of Impossibility

11721172 views66 comments33 favs

Can we meet in the desert, I will stand with a cactus flower clenched between my teeth and balance en pointe. I will tame snakes and find your serpent tongue with my eyes closed. I will usher in the clouds, when it grows hot, and, should you becom

Max Beckmann Poem

11721172 views1010 comments55 favs

the unutterable things of this world