Most read stories

THERE IS NOTHING MORE HONEST THAN PAIN

12641264 views33 comments22 favs

My parrot Poe freezes when a crow soars outside the window the same way I do when you approach my door. You come knocking late at night. What do you want this time? I yell. To come in you say, please. Go the fuck away, I respond but you keep…

Further Conversation with the Author

12641264 views55 comments55 favs

“After your death is confirmed,” I assured him, “a hardcover first edition of your books, will sell for millions at auction in New York.

Experimental Poetry

12641264 views66 comments55 favs

Sometimes the dirt just stays dirt

The Rat, His Treadwheel

12641264 views88 comments77 favs

The rat had been informed, assured, cajoled in order to gain his assent—duly lied to, in other words, by the researchers with not one tear of remorse, with no smudge or smear of conscience . . .

Mural, Mosaic, and Satori

12631263 views00 comments00 favs

He thought of natural violence that had to do with the wind and the Atlantic Ocean. He thought of the Gulf Stream, that important title, that someone had shown him on a map and explained about in detail.

Starting Over 1974

12631263 views33 comments11 fav

Stone-gathering became my job by default. Digging the foundation, trundling the loaded wheelbarrow away from the site, yours.

It's All in the Interpretation

12631263 views33 comments11 fav

a random sticker that says, Repent Sinner, and a club lineup snaking around the corner and sirens and that urine smell at alley's mouth

Ambivalence

12631263 views22 comments11 fav

She said it feels wrong. Too wet, she said. I snickered, she smacked.

The Full Car: A California Saga (1968)

12631263 views00 comments00 favs

—They turned him into a time bomb. Listen close, and you can hear the tick-tick-tick. —All I hear is snoring. How do you know he was brainwashed? —Because he can’t remember a thing about the experiment. —I can say this: If he can’t remember anyth

specter in transit

12631263 views11 comment00 favs

at the front of the bus/ sways a white-veiled woman:/ gnarled hands upon/ a bag of palms,

Uncle Max

12631263 views11 comment11 fav

Before Uncle Max died of a heart attack, he had some words of advice for his only nephew and godson. Upon his death, as instructed, a package in brown paper arrived at Jeffery Glimson’s house on a warm June afternoon.

The Simplicity Being Enough

12631263 views44 comments00 favs

You read my poems, Not because you like them, But just to find yourself, Mentioned in them.

red lights alone

12631263 views55 comments55 favs

before five/glancing down Academy Street/sloping west to where the tracks crossed/twisted tangled metal on wheels.

Three Winter Sketches in Honor of the Vernal Equinox

12631263 views44 comments44 favs

an almost perfectly symmetrical/ Cheshire grin of a moon tonight/ above the iced roof of the house

Indian Summer

12631263 views11 comment11 fav

I'm wonderin how'd your momma and pop get you to give up a whole summer to spend in this dusty old polio museum we call a house?

The Donkey

12631263 views1111 comments88 favs

Since dawn doesn't understand my words, I will give them to the donkey, finely cut for him, let them ferment some time and add a few sprigs of lucerne. The donkey grazes in the meadow down the road and always welcomes me with a grin that displays his mauve gums and his…

twitter quitter

12631263 views44 comments22 favs

you can reach me at hashtag this!

Collect Enough Fragments, You've Got Yourself a Poem

12631263 views1414 comments1111 favs

I. The sun's corona. Empty boxes near the firehouse. Red birth. A bird's lost wing. II. The bitterness of littleness. Apples in a pile.Early love.A spider, swinging. III. A father's harshness.Twelve bills unpaid. Leaves in a crevice. A dream…

Ennui

12631263 views22 comments00 favs

I've done the math, it didn't count. All the days and years of endless boredom. Of waiting for the next best thing, trapped inside your mind like a lifetime prison sentence. Maybe one day we'll be free, maybe one day we won't feel so oppressed. But when does that day…

Blame It on The Good Stuff

12631263 views00 comments00 favs

That was nearly two years and a thousand smiles ago.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 5

12631263 views11 comment11 fav

Vladimir walked down the little path next to the creek with us. I stopped along the way and picked off a sliver of some of the bedrock that was sticking out alongside the narrow path, to take home with me as a souvenir of my family castle, just to be ab

With Respect to a Fellow Poet

12631263 views1010 comments66 favs

We do not all love each other for the sake of our shared art, apparently.

The Cat Pulls No Sudden Punches

12621262 views77 comments55 favs

and springs its ready-made claws into action and takes a soppy chance that things will probably go its feline way today. But you, my friend, must you always throw the testing switch to high voltage on me? Yeah I get that the history teachers…

Another Time

12621262 views44 comments22 favs

My boyfriend had to work but had gotten a turkey for free and thought I could make it for everyone for Christmas Eve dinner. I had never made a turkey before, and not much of anything else. Now if my sister had been there, it might have been a meal of cul

Snap

12621262 views77 comments44 favs

An eternity in a crashing moment.

No Lions or Tigers, Thank Goodness

12621262 views11 comment11 fav

I scrambled back a bit and found my feet after untangling them from my trekking poles. Really should have dropped those when this all started. The bear lunged at me with his teeth and I just barely dodged to the left to avoid getting something bitten of

Visiting Mom's Family in Oklahoma

12621262 views33 comments22 favs

The strangers say hi at the Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, compliment my gold necklace, tell me I'm as beautiful as a Southern Belle, ask where I got my Gucci shoes. “Wow, New…

Juicy | In the Umbra

12621262 views11 comment11 fav

He licks his lips and mouths the air, salivating, unashamed of his propensity for the round, pink grapefruit, the almost egg-shaped oranges, the firm, juicy tangerines.

Sleeplessness

12621262 views33 comments22 favs

The retina was burning, the liquid had dried up, and the veins bursting. My eyes bled. But I kept them open. The sound was like nails on glass, screeching endlessly. Coming close to me louder, harder, faster.

Low down dirty fame.

12621262 views55 comments33 favs

I admit it ... I started writing when I was completely depressed. When I had nothing else to do than just sit back, relax, feel bad and wait until the hurricane slowly passed by (luckily there were few casualties).I thought I was an exception ... but a lot of…