Most read stories

Roanne Smiled

12671267 views22 comments00 favs

With some of these guys it was like propping a kid on a training-wheel bike, then steering the kid down the street til he figured out what to do next. Tricks would come into the bar. Roanne had a smile for all but the dregs…

AUTUMN LEAVES UNDERFOOT

12671267 views33 comments00 favs

Goodbye comes in stages. At first you recognize that you will “miss” someone when they are gone. Then you have to accept the fact that they are leaving. And finally accept the fact that they are gone; and not particularly in that order. If only it

Five Million Yen: Chapter 63

12661266 views22 comments11 fav

Gringovitch sat on the big leather chair in Olivia’s suite. Before him on a coffee table were the nude sketches he’d made of her earlier that day.

Dialysis

12661266 views22 comments22 favs

On the days I wasn’t there, my insides felt like paper-mâché.

Frank & Frank

12661266 views1111 comments66 favs

Ok, so I know this guy, he's a friend of mine. A good friend, even though I think he's left too big a tip on the bar more than once. His name is Frank.

2+2=4

12661266 views66 comments33 favs

that's all you'll find.

soul, baby

12661266 views11 comment00 favs

Soul? Who's got soul? That nothingness that holds us together, between the spaces, in and out of the cracks in our minds and bodies. The soul weighs something, you know. It's been proven. Some guy did a study where he weighed people before and after death, and they weighed…

Nothing to Worry About

12661266 views22 comments22 favs

The boss has a serious problem--he's too nice for his own good.

Down South

12661266 views66 comments55 favs

We drank beer and played loose pool, attracted two fun girls, one Jamaican, the other dirty blonde, both of whom seemed interested in only one of the four of us.

in that time

12661266 views66 comments33 favs

in that time people had gone away and i waited in the inside and looked out on balconies. the ending of the dusk was coming and the details of the railings and brick, the tree branches holding purple plums, the stacked railway ties and a thousand other details became…

black

12651265 views11 comment11 fav

my soul is black and it's deep like heartbreak and heavy as stone and as thick as ink and it is pressing on top of me like last nights one night stand like dead weight so that I can't lift my arms or spread my legs it feels like I am walking through mud but it's…

Bitter About Pay, Poet Laureate Strikes Catty Tone

12651265 views11 comment00 favs

Duffy struck an adversarial tone from the outset, offering up a first poem about improper expenses submitted by members of Parliament that ruffled feathers across party lines.

Millard Fillmore, Dolphin Flayer

12651265 views00 comments00 favs

Last week I heard that there is a new horror movie out about Abe Lincoln, with the plot of the film involving the tallest of presidents hunting down vampire bats with his axe while suspending habeas corpus, writing lame speeches about the freedom of man, restoring the…

fields of gold

12651265 views22 comments22 favs

The son stood on the porch with his grip packed. "I'm off to mine me a fortune a gold, Daddy." "Boy, there's a fortune in gold right here," said the father, indicating the ripe wheat, glowing in early morning sun. The kid slumped. "Pop, you turn over a rock there,…

The Last Days of Summer

12651265 views00 comments00 favs

Their laughter is of a tiny world that knows nothing of taxes or lost loves, or news reports of flag-draped coffins filled with limbs.

5th and Washington

12651265 views00 comments00 favs

“This horrible street. I hate this neighborhood,” she cursed.

Five Acts

12651265 views55 comments55 favs

The television was playing reruns of Mr. Ed, but it was hard to hear because of the flock of birds in the palm tree. I’d sometimes imagined the birds coming through the window, a swarming of pink cotton mouths, mawing everything in sight.

August and After Haiku

12651265 views1212 comments66 favs

The brown grackle chirps/ as she chomps a plump cricket-/ melodious meal.

the spirit of the dead watching. Gauguin

12651265 views22 comments11 fav

Listening too much to the night, with its whistles, bright lights of luminescent bursts like leaves on fire, or the raised ear of a cow in the purple mist, or the curled tail of a pig foraging in the night.

WE TURNED THE SAFETY OFF

12651265 views55 comments22 favs

It’s not like I could tell anyone. I hum a song my mother sang to me as a child. A dressed-up soprano to calm the tail I’ve grown.

Clockwork and Sex Appeal

12651265 views44 comments33 favs

And her life runs like clockwork. And the kids wouldn’t get to school without her, and the paychecks wouldn’t arrive and the taxes wouldn’t get paid. And she listens to religion and country and God telling her how to run her life, what to do and when. B

In Dubai III

12651265 views22 comments22 favs

The boy in the elevator with round glasses, / who carried a newly-purchased broom, / was tall and burdened with clothes

Fernando

12651265 views22 comments22 favs

“It's not him,” Kelly says. “I think it might be,” says her Mom. The three of us are sitting on the long sofa facing the wall which is one …

Dixon Ticonderoga - 2 5/10 medium

12651265 views00 comments00 favs

gotta love a pencil

3

12651265 views55 comments22 favs

there was the place where the large turtles had their eggs, and it was always a concern because everyone wanted the new turtles to make it back to the sea but the electric lights of high wattage along with sounds from the roadways beyond were in one…

Out of the frying pan...

12651265 views99 comments77 favs

the pressure from my lungs threatened to burst my eardrums.

Our Valentine's Day Special (From The Law Offices of Paul Steven Stone)

12651265 views55 comments22 favs

This year, instead of giving roses or candy for Valentine's Day, why not give something your spouse will never forget. A brand new divorce!

The Bison's Alimony

12651265 views66 comments11 fav

The bison know a lot about Longfellow

Shouting the Muse Down

12651265 views00 comments00 favs

In the tumbled-down now there's too much material, culled from pretty boys that don't notice me and tattooed ones that do, and I'm certain there's at least one dreamer soaking eyes into me who knows all the twisted lyrics invoking pretty little horses.

The Walk of Shame

12641264 views22 comments22 favs

There it was One abandoned high heel shoe on the sidewalk Could have been Some kind of robbery Though Maybe it was just The beginning of the Walk of shame